Turns

Touch of moth-wing, its sudden
appearance in a water glass;

a dove materializing on a soot-
stained balcony in the mauve hours.

Every day you try to remember 
to pay attention so you might sense 

that tremor in the air it's said 
prefigures the passing of someone

you love into the afterworld: a face
that slipped last night into your dream, 

a version from youth but wearing the same 
clothes in which you saw them last. Almost 

near enough to catch the scent of a favorite 
cologne, almost near enough to touch the plastic-

made-to-look-like-shell button on a cuff, adjust 
a collar folded the wrong way. Which is all 

of us: holding a styrofoam cup of coffee 
and bagel in a paper bag, standing in a corridor

checking watches or phones, schedules 
for the train; passing through the revolving

doorway or stepping onto the platform,
not pushing, saying You first or After you.