that smile

that's what he remembered most. there it was. lila on the streetcar. lila and the lilacs in the spring. the little suppressed smile. the little half-hidden contempt. and the sadness that nothing he could do or say could ever make her smile at him in any other way.

he remembered once there was a huge cottonwood tree in the night and he stood alone under it and listened and its leaves rattled slightly in the night breeze. it had been a warm night and there was a smell of lilacs in the breeze.