A man sits beside me
on the old-fashioned diner stool
he is young yet
his eyes are
tired
and his face is tight with an emotion I cannot name.
I want to ask him why he wears such a crisp,
fashionable suit
why his hair is impeccably
combed
while all I see in his expression is
chaos.
turbulence.
disorder.

His phone rings.
A shrill cry for attention
he answers.
“Hello?”
He presses a delicate finger to
a perfect ear
I scribble letters into the
small boxes of
the Wednesday crossword.

“Mom?”
His voice is beautiful.
strong.
steady.
A voice one enjoys listening to
simply for the sound of it.
“No, no,” he pleads, “This isn’t
a bad time.”
For the first time he seems to realize that
in this city, it is rude to speak on a
phone in a public place.
He glances at me apologetically.
Those eyes
green like the sea
and deep like the sea
deep eyes
deep with knowledge and sorrow and confusion.
The pencil slips from my fingers and
rolls idly across
the tile floor of the diner.
“How are you?”
so many words unsaid I can feel
the unsaid words drifting through
the air of the crowded
diner
whispering.
I stare at the surface of my coffee as steam
rises and caresses my cheeks and the
man beside me on his cellphone
sitting on the old-fashioned diner stool
the man with deep green eyes
and the beautiful voice
says, “I know. Me too. But that’s the
best we can do, right?”
and I want to reach out and touch him
and touch his elegant hand resting on
today’s Times.

“Of course we’ll come,” he answers, “Tommy and
Bethany and I. We’ll come,” he says again
as if he is
reassuring himself.
“I love you,” he says
and never have more beautiful words been spoken
in a more beautiful voice by a more
beautiful and unhappy person.

He is hanging up
and placing a couple of dollars
on the counter.
then he is walking towards me
coming closer
closer
and I can feel his presence approaching me
as the tide surges towards the shore.

“You dropped this.”
he says in his beautiful voice with his beautiful
deep green eyes
deep like the sea and the rising tide.
He holds out my wayward pencil
in a perfect hand.
“Thank you,” I say and by some
miracle
my tongue forms words
words that slide from my lips into being.
“You’re welcome.”
He hesitates a moment longer as
if he wants to say something but then
he turns and walks away
out the door of the diner and onto
the cold, windy street.
I watch him go and I can hear
waves crashing against the shore
and
then
receding.