Observer

Not seeing me, not even looking,

K. on her silver cruiser charms her way

through the last long moment

of   the changing light:

snow boots and a Seychelles Warbler’s

old blue tights,

a rolled-up yoga mat in her basket

wobbling like a wild tiller as she pedals.

It feels illicit and somewhat right

to stand across the intersection

without shouting

her name, or even waving.

According to the internet

tutorial, the fact that photons

turn into tiny loyal billiard balls

as soon as we start watching suggests

no error of method

or measurement, but rather,

as far as anyone can tell,

an invisibly unstable world,

a shaking everywhere

that seeing must pin down and fix.

So, that morning I stumbled on you

out, alone, bending through

the traffic at Orange and Edwards Streets:

a someone else then

whom I, alone,

can never otherwise see —

there has to be a kind of   speech

beyond naming, or even praise,

a discipline

that locates light and lets it go.