Walk Signal

The little avatar
of a trudging man
blazes white
above the curb opposite
the one I stand on,
the street you’ve just crossed
eyes down
your golden hair
suddenly blown out full
by a gust of wind;
sure to be dry
no tell-tale damp
in it
when you reach your destination.

Stay, you said,
or rather didn’t say,
but I understood,
and your stride
as I followed you in the distance
widened and quickened,
betokened
a grim determinacy.
If possible
your hair blew out more full
more golden,
a beacon,
a tracer
shot into the teeming streets;
and your wonderful long legs
took on a greater definition
of the serpentine
perfect curves they formed
with clarity at this distance:
ankle, calf and thigh,
slender paradigms,
and you became an avatar of my desire.

Your pace quickened still.
You were late
and suddenly you darted left
into a clot of people
and disappeared
just below the red hand blinking
in the signal opposite.

—Philadelphia, April 2011