Meet me in Saint Louis

She seats beside me.

Just a couple of feet away.

Eating her bagel and sipping

Absently from her large coke

While some crumbs lie around the table.

Her eyes pierce the page

Of the paperback book she reads.

Her shoulders so bent that her pony tail

Curves over the little bump

That rises between her shoulders.

A few minutes before

she was talking to a partner from work.

With fearing pride she showed the glitter

Resting on her left hand:

Big, and golden, and shinny

With a small green stone in the middle.

Is that your engagement ring? Congratulations!

And something else I couldn’t hear

And nothing more. Warm words

So coldly said. Not friends, I figure.

Not very good ones, at least.

And she keeps reading besides me

And I don’t know why I feel sad.

I don’t know why, she, eating

there with her engagement ring

her half full large coke

and her absent mind

make me pity her.

Who gave me the right to believe

my life is any better than hers?

Who made me think I’m closer

To happiness and blessedness

And the sun?

Saint Louis, Missouri

4 November 2009