What I Watched Instead of the Window

Forty minutes on the 38,

and I spent most of it

looking at the back of a stranger's neck.

Not meaning to.

The hairs there, thin and dark,

the slight crease where the neck bends forward

as they read.

A scar just below the hairline—

small, pale, old,

a comma the skin had made and kept.

Their coat collar was up on one side

and not the other.

The tightening in the chest

took a minute to place.

It wasn't about them.

I know that.

It was the particular quality of the nape,

the way a specific person—

I'm not going to name—

had that same kind of neck.

The same lean forward.

The stranger got off at Masonic.

I watched until the doors closed.