white sandals

i remember walking down
that breezeway
in the cool summer night

vending machines glowed red
doors opened and slammed
shut
as rough-looking men smoked cigarettes,
gestured into cell phones
in the hazy motel parking lot.

i felt that you called my name but
kept walking,
white platform sandals on yard after yard of gray cement.
i moved away from the reverberating silence
of memory:
my key in the lock reached toward
a damp wind on the highway,
crickets under the eaves.

freedom was fleeting
(darkness only lasting through the
night)
but i did not turn my head
machinery of the mind set into small unstoppable
motion

The resounding echo of my feet,
fragile and determined in white plastic,
held me suspended as i waited
for my liberation

05.05.05