What It Said

You could tell it was words.

That's what stopped me —

the shape of letters still there,

pink bleeding into blue,

each one swollen with rain

until the edges dissolved into each other.

A kid wrote this yesterday, probably.

Before the weather got to it.

I took a photo on my phone

and thought I'd figure it out at home,

zoomed in, better light.

I looked at it for ten minutes that night.

Tilted my phone. Zoomed in.

Still couldn't read it.

It might have been a name.

It might have been a question.

The kind of thing you write on a sidewalk

because paper feels too small

and you need to put it somewhere

bigger than yourself.

I keep opening the photo.

The letters keep not answering.