The Low Place

I waited for you
until tomorrow became ordinary—

another morning opening,
another evening sending rain
through the grated drain
beside the sentence I did not speak.

Under the overpass
water worried the gutter
into its thin black shine.

Your fingers held the rusted rail.
My hand came close enough
to feel the cold on it.

Above us, traffic crossed
then crossed again,
its hard roar taking the air
before either of us could use it.

I meant to tell you
I carried that evening
past its proper end:

the rail,
the rain darkening our sleeves,
the clean sliver of ground
between our shoes.

I thought the bridge
would keep
what passed below it.

Then the storms came hard.

Runoff pulled silt through the drain,
pressed leaves against the fence,
turned the broken bottle
until it faced a different way.

The road remained.
Below it, the low place filled
with rain too dark to show
what had fallen in.

I meant to tell you:
remember us here.

Not as a future.
Not as an answer.

As two people beneath traffic,
rain at their shoes,
one unspoken name
turning and returning
against the stone.