The owner of the wallet dropped in a downtown carpark

is a Samoan who loves Holdens and eating outdoors.
His friend count reveals he is no more or less gregarious
than me and I wonder what else we have in common.

This is how people fall in love these days,
not that I have any intention of falling in love
with the man in the photo on the pub table in front of me.

I wonder if the last person ever to write
their phone number on the back of a beer-soaked bar coaster
knew they were seeing out the epoch
where the speech Bogart delivered to Bergman
beside the plane at the end of Casablanca was possible.

And there would come a day when we could
no longer really lose a person while they were breathing,
when we’d know exactly where the one who got away
got away to and what they had for breakfast.

Hotcakes, it turns out, with maple syrup in an
antique-looking glass bottle that lends itself well
to Instagram’s vintage filter. It’s a scene manufactured like
something out of an old-fashioned film,
a man sitting outside a central city café, sporting half a smile,
not for the face behind the camera but some
far-off, unknown admirer.

This piece first appeared on the Geometry | Open Book website.