After

After the appointment I sat in the car.

The strip mall was mostly dark—

a nail salon still lit at the far end,

a mattress store with a GOING OUT sign

that had been there since spring.

Nothing was wrong.

That was the specific problem.

A cart came loose from somewhere—

I didn't see it start—and crossed the lot

slowly, with a kind of drift

that made it look like it was deciding.

It bumped against my door.

Not hard.

I looked at it through the glass.

My reflection was in there too,

faint, overlaid on the wire frame,

like I was made of it or inside it

or just not solid enough

to hold a shape.

I sat there another forty minutes.

The nail salon turned its lights off.

At some point I started the car.

I want to say there was a reason.