I’m sing along-ing through stop and go traffic when I smell you

It’s the middle of main street in the heat of rush hour at the beginning of fall

Where are you?

Here, jackolanterns line the sidewalk

But I imagine you dropped a mitten across the country, on a street, in Pennsylvania

That a bird picked up and dropped in a mail drop behind the 7-Eleven

And a thread got sent to an old lady in Paris

Which fell into the bag of her exchange student on their way back to Texas

It caught on the lapels of a neuroscientist in the airport

Who was headed up north

And an Autumn wind picked it up and brought it here, to my rolled down window

I’m not sure how to receive this message, to be quite honest

This piece of you could be a reward for carrying on

Perseverance reflects well in the eyes of Gods, does it not?

But more likely it’s a punishment for holding on to what’s gone

The underworld is all too quick to facilitate my stubbornness:

“Here my dear, cheers, and may you never move on”

I’m an easy target and they know it; I am oh, so very haunted

I barely raise an arm against your ghost

Who I’m host to on long walks through red leaves

And now between red brake lights in the backseat

Down main street

In the heat of rush hour where, just like you,

Your smell has too quickly come and gone

I wonder, while the sky begins weeping on my windshield, will you ever leave me alone?