one morning in november

and I just want to feel something
human
with more of skin and touch, and less retribution
more of your creased shirts and faded jeans
with that smile on your face,
in the streets of a city
where we both stood
separate
in simultaneous moments.

I had no way of knowing,
as the clouds melted into metal and concrete,
how to feel less of this distance,
with imagination as a poor substitute
for the lines beneath your eyes when you laugh
or the sound of your voice

yet, when you tell me
a tear, hidden
slid from face to ground
as you turned your eyes away
from the door

across the Atlantic -
I heard it fall.