garbage miles

by him, eve of my departure, 2010

The floorboards under the bed frame 
are cold,
even in June,
grayed with fog grit
that creeps up through the foundations
of old Victorians.

I find it because I was looking
for something else:

my keys,
a dropped transfer,

a reason to be
on hands and knees.

It sits on its side:
an all-black Converse,
the canvas stiffened by dirt,
the rubber toe cap scuffed gray.

The heel is worn down
on the outer edge
from the way he used to walk,
         
leaning hard
into the steep incline
of our hill home.

Outside, the afternoon fog
takes the horizon
block by block.

I remember him standing
by that bay window,
trying to catch
the last thirty seconds
of weak 4:00 PM sunlight,

his sleeves rolled up
to the elbow.

I trace the heavy black ink
on his forearms,

alphabets of damage
that used to press
against my skin.

He had this habit
of squinting
until he looked unreachable,

even when I was
three feet away.

The asphalt was slick
with a sudden drizzle
the morning I loaded the car.

I drove north,
crossing the span
of the orange towers.

Hot, wet tire smell
mixed with salt air
and the scent
of headlands eucalyptus.

In the rearview,
the city was a photograph 
developing backwards.

Before the bridge:
the brutalism
of the station,

all those afternoons
I’d watched him disappear
down the escalators,

swallowed
into the subterranean hum
of the tracks.

Red brake lights behind me.

Leaving
like standing
in an empty room,

looking
at a single black shoe,

wondering how many miles
north I have to drive

before his shoe
stops limping
after me,

rubber tongue out,
panting

home