New Year's Day 2008

It was after you decided but before you told me,

while I sat alone at the same table, again unset,

the game of hide & seek over:

I found the poem.

It was after you told me, but before it sank in:

I read it to you at the table strewn with books

of Chinese authors living in Paris,

Argentinean poets translated into English,

and the volume with the no longer perfect poem.

Both of us considering what passed between us,

what is next to come.

(cc) Karen G. Johnston