In Transit

I have learned to distinguish you from the rest. Something about not asking questions, something about not making plans, but Thursdays are for talking to Damascus. There is a reluctant smile on your face when they say you do not look Syrian. When they ask where you are from, you say that you now live in the States.

When you asked to see my hands it was the start of an investigation. There will always be suitcases, and train tracks and airports, I know, and encounters that are lost and those that last.

My pains have been flexible thus far. I also live off the ground but for different reasons. Each time you found peace in me I felt nervous. This city is full of waitresses who look like your dead friends. I ask for their names, I try to keep record. Breadcrumbs in the forest.

I am a map of your comings and goings. It was already yesterday when we held each other’s hands. The days will grow longer. The light will be perfect to remember the Bosphorus. This city of mine that could have been yours but then wasn’t.