GARNET
christy claymore On an April day—warming, flowering— my heavy bookbag pulling me to one side, you smiled as we passed each other with a few nice words on that university sidewalk, as we often did, met always with a slight, age-old charge we were too bashful to act upon. Then, that July, I saw you downtown— I was with him and you were on your way to work. And years later, at a summer concert, you were with pretty her, and I was eight months with child. Soon enough, I began to fade into the backdrop even of my own life. I pushed the stroller and you strolled by, looking straight ahead. Eventually, word came of your own struggle. Shortly after I was informed of it, I saw you standing alone on a street corner waiting for the light to change. And I prayed for you— a healing prayer more fervent than the ones I’d been saying for myself. A couple years later, I finally ran away from home, and you won your own battle. The cruel years taught us kindness. And one morning we said “hello” as if nothing took us away from that April afternoon more than a decade ago. 7
