Through the Window of the All-Night Restaurant 

Nicholas Christopher 

across from the gas station

a bus stopped every ten minutes

under the blue streetlight

and discharged a single passenger.

Never more than one.

A one-armed man with a cane.

A girl in red leather.

A security guard carrying his lunch box.

They stepped into the light,

looked left, then right, and disappeared.

Otherwise, the street was empty,

the wind off the river gusting paper and leaves.

Then the pay phone near the bus stop

started ringing; for five minutes it rang,

until another bus pulled in

and a couple stepped off,

their hats pulled down low

The man walked up the street,

but the woman hesitated,

then answered the phone and stood

frozen with the receiver to her ear.

The man came back for her;

but she waved him away

and at the same moment her hat blew off

and skidded down the street.

The man followed it, holding his own hat,

and the woman began talking into the phone.

And she kept talking,

the wind tossing her hair wildly,

and the man never returned

and no more buses came after that.