Ordinary Things

There is a shadow figure in my brain
a non-existent someone I speak to
in a sun-lit kitchen about mundane things,
and share a meal with, and ordinary conversation,
a story perhaps of my day,
the way the sky looked as I walked home in the rain,
the spill I took on wet grass,
the smell of which evoked
a summer spent long ago in Arles–
Marie-Hélene, bicycle rides and créme de menthe sodas–
the minutiae more alive in the retelling,
the story itself imbuing meaning,
without it the day lost
in shadow play and half remembered rumor