Parking Ticket

I come with words. They’re untrainable.
You know the moment—November sun
sits in your chair and graves
are being back-filled. Pretense
is the funeral. Yet we stare at each other
speechless as though silence is
our polemic. Then we walk away in opposite
directions—forever remembering
what we didn’t say. I have all these words
written down—in a poem this time
though it could as easily have been
my signature on a parking ticket—
parked in a tow-away zone—deduct three points
for not knowing you couldn’t stay.