grace - jeffrey mcdaniel

Grace
by Jeffrey McDaniel

Glance at a woman on a train platform.

Suddenly we've been married for years.

I know all the delicate nuances

in her nine dialects of silence.

Can pick her from a thousand others

just with a sniff of her neck.

We sit next to each other, as we always have.

Our elbows touch, like the tips of matches.

Exactly the way I remember.

When she says excuse me, this is my stop,

there is nothing awkward about it.