Conversation on Sussex Street


The man on Sussex Street blew smoke
from the side of his mouth,
in deference to her standing in front,
not a foot and an inch away.

They don’t look very intimate, the pair,
casual friends, perhaps acquaintances
with a common interest– the World Cup,
German lieder, the ugliness of Tories–

that led to the pavement colloquy–
vehement on her part, restrained on his,
as if in acknowledgment and apology
for so towering over her–

as the fine brown shops of Sussex Street
tower, and above them the things
named towers, which make
our hesitant way into the sky.

I imagine her in bitterer times to come
remembering the man who blew his
cigarette away from her when he might–
without blame–have ignored it all–

a moment she might recall for its
off-hand courtesy, lost, had someone
not been watching, a brevity compact
as carbon, such as that which under layers

of streets and towers and mismatched couples
inconsequentially chatting, and the bones,
becomes, by some magic infinitely understated,
diamond, saving, easy to overlook, enduring.