Archival

He held the gas nozzle like a heavy iron

and looked at me through the steam of the rain.

He remembered a version of me with a lighter step,

before the city had started to drain.

'You were always the one who stayed out late,'

he said, as if I were a photograph he’d kept.

I looked at my face in his chrome hubcap,

a warped, silver ghost where the image had crept.

That person is buried under five years of rent

and the quiet of nights spent checking the lock.

He’s talking to a man who isn't standing there,

while the numbers on the pump continue to clock.