maybe we are someone else's random person in the street

maybe we are


someone else’s


random person in the street

caught in a glimpse at a crossing

or heard when the traffic comes to a halt.

like the lady who laughed, 

her voice bright as wind chimes,


as she tripped over nothing but her own hurry,


and her cheeks flushed with the warmth of embarrassment.

the soft, patient man


who held the door a second too long,


for the frazzled English woman—


hair untamed, bag slipping from her shoulder

rushing to save time she didn’t have.

the mother

kneeling on worn knees to tie her daughter’s shoe,


her fingers weaving whispers of love into laces,

her tired eyes cradling a quiet kind of joy,

as the little girl grinned at a world only she could see.

maybe we are just

the fleeting, the forgettable.


but maybe just to us.

but still, someone remembers—

the way we ran from the rain that time,


that photo of the sunset I finally got to take,


the way you carried six bags of shopping with two small hands—


someone remembers

the way we existed


in their world for a breath.

and that, 

I think,


is enough for me.