The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Don Colburn
Distracted by a Man Talking to Himself
I don’t dare look up. He might be staring at me and then what? We’re on a bus stuck in traffic, wrong side of the river. At least I have something to read. He’s sitting directly across, but it’s not me he’s speaking to nonstop. I want to get back to my book of difficult poems by one of the greats I’ve tried hard to understand but that won’t work now with this other voice in the way whose words I don’t quite catch yet can’t stop listening for, the tone so true that if I heard it through a flimsy motel wall I’d know his need. Know if he was pissed or plastered or deliriously glad, singing to himself or chatting up a woman. Know if she was right there or on the phone or in the bathtub with the door ajar — or on a bus inside his talking head and mine. Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |