Zodiac

 “A blazing fire makes flame and brightness 
out of everything that is thrown into it.”
                                                   ~  Marcus Aurelius


From a fifteenth floor window, she sees the blue speck of him
ford a snowbank, then cross the quiet street below to the train 
stop. It is late, or it is early. At that hour, even the ambulances 
at Cook County and Veterans' hold still in their bays. Only whiffs
of scent linger now in the hallways and elevators of the apartment
building— oils from the furious daily frying of puris and breaded
fish, sour-sweet curls from boiled rice and tamarind paste. 
Every floor is a country of rock salt or bleach and the bitter 
juice of every day. Decades later, in her mind's eye, she can
still see the blue-white sheen on everything; how he leaves 
traces of his going in the snow, how it tends to mending.

Her own breath on glass: 
a constellation of dots. 
Years cradled in each.