Old Movie

It is not the waving of the white handkerchief
he will remember long after the train lurches
as if he were in an old movie being shown
to children at the end of the world.

No, it is not the bloom of the white cloth
signaling surrender in the stale air of the station
or the incandescence of our skin under the moon,
nor will he recall the flecks of rust in her irises
or the turbulence of their passion—

It will be how she turned away to walk home
and her brief turning back toward him
as if she remembered a phrase in a perfect language
to describe the velocity of sorrow.