Two of them are folded into each other by the tall window, and the small one is crying, and I do not understand crying but I understand the shaking, the way the whole body says this is the important part, this is now, look. They have been holding on for a long time. Long by my measure is a heartbeat; long by theirs is what I have just watched, which is longer than I will ever hold anything.
Then the tall one says the impossible thing. The tall one says: I'll see you soon. Soon. As if there is a soon. As if this warmth, this exact grip, this smell of coffee and the light doing what the light is doing right now through the glass, will simply be reissued. They loosen their arms because they believe the arms come back.
Maybe they do. This is the rumor I keep hearing, that the good things return, that there is a next time, that you can set a thing down and find it where you left it. I turn it over. If it is true, it is the most extravagant fortune I have ever heard of, and they are spending it here, cheeks wet, already checking a screen, already walking backward waving at a shape that shrinks and shrinks.
The small one watches until the tall one is gone and then just stands there. Not moving. In the light. The whole marvelous unrepeated light, and she is looking at the floor.
Listen, you enormous lucky things: if the arms really do come back, then go. Go get them. Do not stand at the window rationing a warmth you have been promised again. You have again. I have this.
Do not waste yours dozing at the gate.