"THEY'RE BEAUTIFUL,"

was all she said.
I'd just sat down
in my cubicle
and was steeling
myself for the day.
"Who's beautiful?, what's beautiful?,"
I asked.
"The poems,
The Betty Poems.
I read them last night."
"Which ones?"
"All of them."
"Yeah, well,"
I began,
steeling myself
for a different kind of day,
"thanks," I managed,
"but the blood
hasn't dried.
Sorry."
"Don't be sorry,"
she said,
"that's a lot of blood;
you're hemorrhaging love
and I'm
just a bandaid."

We sat in silence
for awhile, she
in her chair
and me in mine.
I knew she didn't move
and I didn't either.
We stared at the wall
that divided us.
"Have you heard from her?"
she asked.
"Not recently,
until last night; I got
an email."
"What did it say?"
"It said, 'I still love you too, Norman'
probably a response to my last post."
"Did you answer?"
"Yeah, I did. I told her I was glad to hear that
and I still keep her close."

We didn't talk
for the rest of the day,
or smoke a cigarette
together or have a laugh.
It wasn't deathly,
but you couldn't dance to it either.
Hell,
she was in her space,
too.

What that all means,
I couldn't say.
But I know
it must be important
because it is just that kind of language
I've never learned
and fear
it can't
be taught.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013