I sat on the curb

I sat on the curb

waiting for a delivery,

and instead of waiting at the door

I ended up here,

watching my shadow

move across the sidewalk

as the sun moved.

The concrete is rough,

embedded with small pebbles,

marked with the color of old stains,

the weathering

of seasons,

the accumulation

of everything

that has happened

on this patch of ground.

My shadow was sharp at first—

defined edges,

a clear outline

of my hand, my shoulder, my head—

then it softened

as the sun climbed,

became less of a thing

and more of a suggestion,

a ghost

of where I was sitting.

The concrete doesn't change.

It holds everything:

the stain from the coffee spill

from two years ago,

the crack from the freeze last winter,

the small pebbles

that have always been

embedded there,

waiting

for something to press them further down

or wear them smooth

or keep them exactly

as they are.

I watched my shadow disappear,

then reappear,

then disappear again,

as clouds passed over.

The sun kept moving.

The concrete stayed.

The delivery never came.

I sat there anyway,

twenty minutes, thirty,

watching the light move across the surface,

watching the shadow

of myself

become smaller, then larger,

then something else entirely,

something that wasn't quite me anymore.

When I finally got up,

the shadow was gone.

But the concrete was still there,

still holding

the shape

of where I'd been,

the memory

of the sun

crossing the sky,

the small

and infinite

weight

of something

hard and permanent

underneath everything.