Sometimes You Just Know It

i know because i saw you
run down the weathered
slope of the wet
hill like topsoil
washed away, gone.

i know you're gone.
you left like the heat
leaves my house, slipping
out and under the cracks in my door.
an exhaled breath, gone.

do you know
that i am standing
here like a school building
on sunday
(the cleaning lady banging
her bucket, then gone).


-- i know
jorge ignacio cortiñas