A Conversation With A Stranger

After Oh, how lovely this is … to see you! And How long has it been?
Comes the first sip of wine, and after that a clash of cutlery,
The shuffling shoes of the receding waiter, then the silence – brief.
So brief, you almost don’t hear it. What are the smallest objects you have lost?
What sudden smells make you stop and think back? Oh, that song, isn’t this the one we…?
And the squinting into a past. He interrupts, and between forking morsels of food in his mouth,
Talks about the news of the day – a theory, a speculation, an interpretation.
Asks for a story about an old friend, About your mother and father and brother and sister –
How are they, by the way?
Old friend … How many old friends have died, and where do you think they’ve gone?
And your mind is slowly opening, becoming a hollow cavity, a cavern, a grotto
In which what had been hidden from you by the din, hitherto,
Now darts around like winged creatures with their insistent, intimate, supersonic squeaking.
My eyes begin listening in black and white. Did your mother like you?
How do you construct a conversation with an old stranger?
But by now the answers come easier, more flowing, a zone, a spigot, a well.
What parts of yourself have you given up since leaving your home town?
Did your father know you existed? Have you asked your brother and sister and friends
What they thought of you, back then? You can tell me anything and I will believe you.
Look at me! Have you ever wandered into breakdown? Did you witness the demise
Of the old cracked teapot? There are lizards lurking in the corners of his eyes.
The dinner is done. He folds his used napkin in a neat square. I crumple mine.
The wine glass is empty, except for dregs. The bill is paid.
He straightens up, his face a vacant dinner plate, the fork and knife neatly laid, side by side.
And when he enters the taxi and waves goodbye, you are left standing at the entrance
Of the temple of lost conversations, wearing that ridiculous dress you had bought to please.
Your hands hanging limp, you stand sniffing the ancient air
For clues, for distillations, for forgotten perfumes. The crow on the tension wire,
Suspended between the sky and earth, steadies itself in the fitful breeze.
Smoothing its ruffled feathers with its beak, it caws plaintively –
Have you ever? Have you ever?

-by Rita Putatunda