There was a way she walked that reminded them

of someone…

a flickering memory… a hand reaching for a hem.

Sometimes little bits of light escaped

from the folds and seams of her clothes

ephemeral as fireflies, not catchable, not caught, but

sticky in a way, as if

if you touched one

your fingers might come away pollen covered,

maybe sweet.

She wasn’t always aware;

she had her own worries after all,

but somehow she reminded them…

after she had passed from sight…

of the Old Tracks over high mountains,

of bridges suspended by a thread,

of small boats breeching the fetch,

and she evoked in them a homesickness

for a lost, beckoning place.

She shopped at the market,

stopped at stoplights,

stepped over ice on the slick streets,

oblivious—who knows?—

to the light streaming out behind her.

I saw her once.

Just there.