Slip

The wind he chased knew all the alleys, all it's bricks.
Sllipping down banks.
Around shop corners.
Past the holes in your face and your worn out tricks.
laughing low and lazy, teasing like a lover's quick touch, just enough to pull him along.
Never enough to continue on.
It slid through his fingers, cool and slow, half smoke, half sigh, half a promise you'll never know.
Every streetlight shadowed the shape he might make, just a wisp in the dark.
His first small mistake.
The one you ran from, didn't you, through the back alleys and out of sight.
Chasing that breath, that lie, his gaze, that phase.
He was thinking maybe this time he could pin something down.
But the wind's got a way of slipping out of town.