To The Lady on the Train,
I saw a woman on the TTC this morning that in some ways reminded me of you - this happens quite a bit, actually. It sent my mind to wandering and remembering and thinking about things that were and things that might have been.
Even now a slender woman with brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles can get onto a streetcar, and in the middle of a crowded trolley I can be transported to somewhere that I cannot fully describe.
I know that there is a time and a place that is very real because I have visited it many many times. But it is almost as if it's another dimension that knocks up against this reality and I can only get glimpses of it.
And in this place I know the scent of you and the feel of your skin beneath my palm. In this place I can trace your lines and draw new patterns from your freckles. I can follow the arch and curve of your spine and hear the sigh of your breath on clean sheets. In this place I know your eyes and your smile and feel of your hair on my cheek.
In this place I can feel the shifting of weight and turning and the duality of strained tension and of surrender. I know that this place and this time are real and the echos of it resonate somewhere deep inside of me like the ringing of a deep low bell.
Even now, the hum of you lies just beyond what I can fully perceive. But when I listen for it, I always find you in this place.
The Man in the Station.
