As Sure As I’m Sitting Here

At the end of another day, at what can only be thought of as
The end of another day, when the day in fact
Is over as we know it, and I know it,
And you know it, and this
Is not the first, I sometimes get a sense
Of my own existence, as though I too
Were alive, as though I too could be thought of as living
To the end of another day, a day I can look at as filled
With the existence of things
That I looked at, a day in a life full of moments
Of looking, at a man with a briefcase, at a bird
On a warehouse roof.
At the end of another day it seems altogether possible for me
To have boarded a bus in the morning, to have known
What a bus is, to have taken a seat
As people on buses do, sure of myself, sure
Of existence, to have looked
Out a window and seen
What was out there and known
What it was: a face
Looking back at me, as sure
As I’m sitting here, or surer than that.
If I saw a young woman there on the corner, I know
That I saw her. I know that was her.
If I looked at a woman, if I stared into space
At what can only be thought of as
My own vacant view of things, the vacant
Gave way to her, all around her as I looked
Her absence stepped back with the same eyes
I had, and it knew what I knew, but I
Saw her first.
If I sat on a bus seat, if she stood on the corner, if
The ground that she walked on seemed to
Kneel down under her, kissing itself, kissing its existence
As the ground that she walked on, well then that
Is what happened, and I know it,
And you know it, but I knew it first.
As another day ends, as the bird that I looked at glides
Back toward an absence its wings form
The thought of, I too can be said to
Know what I know: her face for a day in this world
Existed, her face existed and those were her eyes
That acknowledged me, as sure as I’m sitting here, or surer,
Much surer, than that.