Where I Turned Back

I was already late. I stopped.

A weed was growing from the crack

where the sidewalk buckled — the same corner

where three years ago I turned back

instead of walking to your door.

Gray-green, low, a yellow bloom

no wider than my thumbnail, chalk-dry

all around it. The cold, the gloom

of an October morning, and I just stood there.

It found the crack and went.

No preparation. Didn't wait.

Didn't know what it meant

to go or what it cost to not.

I was eleven minutes late.

I went. I sat in the room.

I said what I'd come to say. I ate

the lunch they put in front of me.

On the way home I took the same road, slow.

The weed was still there in the flat light.

I still haven't told you what I know.