I don't know why this photo, the last that
we took together, is muted in grays and sepias,
as if the West Coast sunlight was somehow
or a scrap of newsprint held up to window glass.
You look so small on the bench beside me,
bony shoulders folded into themselves,
your kind face hovering somewhere between
a smile and a vague sense of surprise.
Your matchstick legs could barely hold you,
not for long, your balance swimming
in and out like some uncertain dance partner,
seemingly at random, Yet you insisted on
walking me through Chinatown, buying
a handknit sweater and chocolates for your niece,
those red paper lanterns suspended across
every street, as if the streets themselves,
narrow and directionless, were merely
an afterthought; you insisted on seeing the
enormous Christmas tree lighting up the wharf,
sea lions barking their hunger, as always,
for all to hear, each blubbery mass and voice
calling out indecipherable from the next.
We are waiting, in this moment, for one last
taxi to the airport, as ordinary as that.
But the sun was much warmer than it looks,
the palm trees behind us alive and swaying gently,
while the snow back home, three feet of it,
was a few short hours away. I can't blame you
for not missing it, not missing it at all.
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