Incident in the Park
Working back from the moment I rose off the bench,
dashed like a wave and tempted to slap him,
when three times yes, his question was sex,
I hadn’t gotten it wrong;
before he patted the seat,
before the sequined, leaf-brocaded water,
he waited for me in a patch of sun. That Thursday
he’d called me kind in his halting English,
a delicate something suspended between us.
Wednesday, he ventured questions about my life.
Tuesday, he was a smiling traveler, briefly landed,
wiling away a month of mornings
here in our lakeside park. Monday by chance,
a man out of nowhere extending a greeting—
How might a stranger make a friend? Begging my pardon:
that’s where I want it to end.
By the same author
I Dreamed of Obama on the Night of His First Election
He stirred the coals of my dwindling campfire. We were alone. Blue tendrils of smoke punctuated the Mesozoic haze