Thirty Eight

c a t h e r i n e

The waiting shed was getting lonesome by the second. 

From the subway station,  I walked my way to the nearby bus stop that leads to Jackson’s neighborhood. He said he’d pick me up here.  

But time is running fast, and the 5’o clock sun is vanishing, and a few people had passed by me; a few had left the waiting shed too, and now it’s all me—my patience getting smaller and my mind that’s beginning to wander in dangerous solace.

From the bus that had stopped and left a new batch of strangers before my eyes, from the distant Daegu sun dying behind the mediocre establishments and the polluted city air passing with time, my eyes saw Vernon—and how he appeared earlier as he left me in the subway station. 

I couldn’t help but wonder what he meant by his words, under the spring trees before, his gaze of autumn held within them distant melanc