Strangers

I walk the city
tonight as quiet
as the Van Gogh shade
that touches your face
with its almost violet smoke.

If this sky were in mountains
dark enough to be
your blue-black coat of night,
we would not be
spelled out in chemical sums for emotions.

We would feel
with all that romantic hegemony.

From this far, I can see
your eyes looking through
the words you were never named,
through the danger of your parents
never meeting--
never weaving your Celtic nest of hair.

This is where we know
one another
as strangers passing
on opposite sides of a building.

How much of our belongings
are in each others' pockets?

If you listen at a granite wall,
the echo in all its grey
will be my whispering song.



by jerry gordon
12.3.5
for a Chika Yoshii painting entitled: Melissa