to the lady in pink

sporadic sunday
84 sheppard bus swept past
right-hand signal measuring silence
my eyes scanning, waiting, resting upon
the two-storey tempered red brick building
white door with half-moon paned window

you were
there out front
our one-sided encounter — 
me entranced, you oblivious — 
frozen like a tableau 
from madame stremecki’s grade 7 drama class

adorned in your chosen 
colour for the day 
(perhaps it’s every day’s colour)
head to toe right 
down to the roller skates
old school — two wheels fore, two wheels aft

ten or so below
much too cold
outside
you carved out 
a small ice-free space
in front of the lifeless 
six-step concrete porch
no room for welcome

gliding across your private eight feet of tarmac
sliding into memories of another era
the warm glow of twirling disco lights
kept alive by looped laces
strapping mind’s eye 
polaroids to your feet
what dreams
are you rekindling
in the crisp lung-piercing air

gripping the black
cast-iron railing
hands tight never releasing
crossing one over 
the other making 
x’s in a row
back and forth you go
never leaving 
the sanctum of this safe space
who has filled you with fear 
of moving beyond

eight wheels — four tracks
round and round the blacktop
like scribbled flattened circles
round a word
for emphasis asphalt grooved
by the weight of your world
shoulders gone round
eyes cast to the ground

may your stand 
against time
against temperature
against territory
rekindle

Written by Scott Moore
Illustrated by Landon Wideman

Inspired February 2021