At the Station

It begins with a scent I cannot place
until it finds its way back to you.
Jasmine, perhaps. Or something like it.
Not the flower itself
but what remains after it.

I was young enough to believe
that what I felt would stay.

The city was already changing.
Voices gathered in the streets,
not loud, but certain.
Names were spoken differently.
Doors closed earlier than before.

We walked where we could,
through a garden that held the evening
a little longer than the rest of the day.
You said something I did not understand.
I remember the way you said it.

I remember your hand
more than your face now.

At the station there was no ceremony.
Only the weight of leaving
moving through the crowd.

Your suitcase was small.
You held it close,
as if it might be taken from you
before you reached the train.

We stood without speaking.
There was nothing to decide.

When you touched my hand
it was not farewell,
not yet.
Just contact
held longer than it needed to be.

The train came in with its usual noise,
indifferent,
as if it had done this always
and would continue to do it.

You stepped back first.

I did not follow.

The doors closed between us
without emphasis.
A simple action.
A fact.

I watched until I could not be sure
which window had been yours.

After, the platform emptied.
The air kept what it could
of your passing.

Years have taken most of it.
Not all.

Sometimes, in summer,
something opens in the air
and I am there again,
not with you,
but with the moment before you were gone.