I was behind you and didn't mean to see you

I was behind you and didn't mean to see you.

The fluorescent line stretched and I couldn't leave.

Your items on the belt—

ordinary things, nothing that proved anything.

But the back of your neck was the same,

the same slight angle,

the same small way of waiting.

I watched the conveyor move.

Plastic bags. A box of something.

The light above us both patient and false.

I could have turned around.

I didn't.

The line moved forward and I moved with it

because that's what happens

when you're trapped in a place

designed to hold you still

while you figure out what you still feel.