In the darkening streets on my way home, slick with rain,
I saw her face in the reflection of the glass, pressed to the window
like a dead bird. Late September, and her hair was already beginning
to redden with the passing seasons, her hands clutched
in her lap. We spoke about our favorite shapes of storm clouds
and our shared love for the sound of rain hitting a tin roof,
until a baby in the next compartment screamed
and her face closed over like water sealing itself above a drowner.
She wrote her story on a ripped index card like a Postsecret,
biting her lip until the skin almost tore off,
then handed it to me while simultaneously looking away, ashamed.
Three years later and I’m still practicing how to say I’m sorry
even though she’s already been long gone.
On the heaviest nights I go out to the backyard, filled with autumn leaves,
and drop stones one by one into the well,
listening to the sound of them clink at the bottom like stars.
I remember how having a child was her one and only wish,
but after her own father turned out to be her baby’s father too,
all of that drowned. These are the nights when I wonder
if her son or daughter would have looked like her dad,
and if it would be like gazing into the wrong side of a mirror.
It’s bad enough when a person can’t even face their own reflection.