There on the street I stared and stared,
Causing her to return my gaze,
A situation like that requiring words,
Even on this island where we live.“You don’t remember? We went out
And then you didn’t call,” she said.
It came to me—how she walked
Right by and disappeared
Down the subway stairs some weeks after.Other things came too:
Her surprise that I had never lived
Elsewhere than this city.
“The world didn’t want me enough
That I shouldn’t stay,” I said.There is strangeness on these streets
And I just may be part of it.The woman who called me once a month to say
We were finally going to have that coffee
But never did or the one last week, reed thin,
Preparing for virtual surgery.“We will continue,” I said,
“On my return from Portugal.”“Portugal? I must go back
To where I have never been.”
This she said to me.October 3, 2002