A Postcard From 23

That city is gone now,
or rather, I no longer
know how to arrive.
Still, one street keeps its sunlight
filed under my breathing.

Beside me, your face,
almost blurred by time’s mercy.
Your name slips sometimes,
yet I remember exactly
how easy the day felt there.

Light leaned on your coat,
gold as if the afternoon
had chosen us both
for some brief apprenticeship
in believing tomorrow.

At twenty-three, I
thought the future was a bridge
lit just out of reach.
I kept walking toward that shine
as if wanting were enough.

Now I meet that self
like a letter mailed too late
and somehow opened.
She did not know what would fade.
She did not know what would stay.

And this is the hope:
not that she was wholly right,
but that she kept faith,
enough for me to inherit
some of her unfinished light.