Incident on Mott Street

When she crossed Mott Street
toward me, her blonde-gone-to-gray hair
straying back in the evening wind,
I thought I might have known her once.

I thought I might have known her
when she was named Sandra
and she lived near me for a year or two.
We waited together
at the bus stop for school. Puberty
was just a morning hint then,
the kissing years were a year or two away.
I never really had
a full on crush upon her
(and she moved away soon after)
but many mornings kissing her seemed
all but inevitable,
I didn’t know exactly how
but suspected that
I’d kiss her someday at a party
because there were parties all the time
where older kids kissed,
the neighborhood was flooded with kissing
back then.

And now here she was on Mott Street
crossing toward me
again. We did look at each other
but it was evening.
She kept going.

I stayed on the corner
for one moment more
then turned and walked back
toward the Bowery,
turned down Elizabeth Street
past the few shops still open and the
impossible women who waited
to pour out onto the sidewalks,
heading for the bus stops,
ready to be kissed now
in the last warm rain of autumn.