January 7

I look down at the water trapped below and the face of a woman I don’t quite yet know looks back at me, deformed and mixed in with the ripples of the pond lying beneath the surface.

Who are you, I ask

She doesn’t respond but I have seen her face before

in other people’s houses at dusk,

in a fogged up mirror with open pores and knots about her.

She looks as if trying to relay a message,

but as hard and as long as I stare back at her, holding our gazes

for a small sliver of eternity, I can’t manage to understand her.

Later that day, I saw her again through a spoon.

The bell of the restaurant rang and in walked in a man with stained fingers,

horn-rimmed glasses that hid penetrating eyes and a cut on his left eyebrow.

Through the distraction, I had not noticed the waiter come to take away the plate, the spoon; and with him, he took away the message.

I wonder if it was something important.

(It was)