Lonely Boughs

A train went north
A plane flew west
A car drove south

One by one they left me here
with a memory for every street,
but the pictures faded slowly
like a story incomplete.
And though the trees were golden green,
and the sultry season air still tasted sweet,
and the sun still painted shadows,
the kind that cooled me from the heat
once upon a careless teenage summer

Though it all appeared the same,
the boughs seemed to shift slower
in the wind
as a palm outward extends and waves goodbye
and leaves only the lonely boughs behind.