Afterglow

Across from the minor league stadium,

buses pull in and out from the depot.

For some passengers, it’s the first or last

time they will see the city of Richmond,

Virginia, a city completed by its losses

as my entire life has been.

Though, perhaps

already rolling eastbound on I-64,

they taste just the meringue of its afterlife

at night, and catch just a glimpse

of the soft glow beyond the PET Dairy

distribution plant, where inside,

whether they know this or not,

men must be

making numbers of milk.

Leaving and returning

are like wedding days, irretrievable.

We remember the event

but almost nothing in particular.

Often these occasions are lost on us

completely, obliterated, covered

in snow. But other times,

                    What’s all that light?

someone wonders, waking

from a drowse or turning

his head into the window.

It must be the people

who live in that place.