Progress

She said it looking at her notes.

She looked up. Smiled. I smiled back.

Thank you, I said. She nodded.

We wrapped up. The black

of the parking garage. The machine.

The receipt. I sat in traffic.

Forty minutes. Bag in the back.

The timestamp. Specific

lines from the session I should have pushed on.

The merge. The light going red.

Her voice: you're making real progress.

The way it sat in my head

like something she had said to everyone

that morning.