Tiny Pageants of the Soul

Strangers,
I like how our fingers brush
handing coins back
& forth at the market.
That communion.
I draw a slow smile
from the tough old bird
in a raincoat
at the bus stop.
I sit on a park bench
in new moon dark.
Crows play in
streetlight shadows
like the ghosts
of dead puppies
& I have had doubts
about my heart.
Love is impossible
but we exist
in its ripples,
like that anatomy
student who slid
the sheet off a corpse
& there was
his childhood crush.