A conversation on the bus

Touch: The Journal of Healing

For Bob Atwood

by Claudia Serea

This is my life now,

and I just have to live it as it is,

he told me one day

when I bumped into him on the bus

on my way to work.

He was gone the next summer

before the air turned humid.

Gone,

without complaints,

like the petals

of the last tulip standing:

simply, unclench

and let go.

Months later, I see him again

in a photo taken years ago

on a trip to New York.

He sits next to my daughter,

his face turned to the window,

as if trying to catch a glimpse

of something else,

something important,

fleeting.

Claudia Serea is the author of Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, 2012), A Dirt Road Hangs From the Sky (8th House Publishing, 2013), and To Part Is to Die a Little (Cervena Barva Press, 2015). She is the founding editor of National Translation Month. You can find more of her word at cserea.tumblr.com.