I swear, when I wrote this
I didn't know
who would be reading—
but then again,
I must have known roughly
how it would go, since
I could picture you singing
the tune in your head—
line after line,
never rushing, never stumbling,
not stopping until
you got to the end—
as if you knew which word
should come next
by heart,
because you and I
were the same.
Not entirely, of course,
but close enough
to look the part.
It was as if our two souls
shared a shadow; as if,
for half a minute there,
we were so busy
that we wouldn't have
remembered, if asked,
what our names were.
And I realized
when I'd finished that
that was what I wanted;
the words didn't matter.
It wasn’t quite art—but it was
a good start.