Yesterday evening, driving home on the highway
in traffic, I passed them, on the edge of the city
where a housing development sits back of a berm
with only its roofs showing over the top. A woman
and a small child were sitting in wind on the slope,
looking down at the traffic, the child folded into
the arms of the woman, both wearing thin jackets.
The grass where they sat had been flattened
by snow that’d only recently melted. I passed
in an instant, the two growing small in my mirror.
I imagined they’d climbed, mitten in mitten, up
and over the berm from one of the houses behind, 
to sit watching the traffic stream out of the city,
the child warm in the arms of the woman,
and the woman warmed by the child. Miles after
seeing them falling behind me, swept away by
the dusk, I kept catching myself glancing up
into the mirror, as if I might find them again.