when you call

i know just what you want
as you ask me, again,
to close my eyes and remember the future
as it existed only then,
under you and the sun on our one good day.

do i remember that journey across the safeway parking lot
to find you between two red sedans?
sunglasses, scruffy jeans, some daffodils
me, in my shortest skirt, my thick wedges, me
clumsy small,
wanting to be leggy today, for you.
then me, arms stretched back in the grass,
when you tell me to reach back to where the blades
meet the dirt, and think about how soft it is, how small,
that place where one thing ends, and the other begins

and you wait for my reply,
that is, the satellite recreation of my voice
in your ear, it says,
i remember.
Well, i say it: here,
face to the glass, a sudden
flat cloud against my nose,
and behind this, the street,
the bug sounds, the squirrels and the evening cats,
the trees with their little leaves
curled and shivering,
and a wind comes, some fall free,
i count them as they move
in five paths down and west.
before they hit the ground,
I will turn.