“…Pessoaic, ” he said <br />and my heart fluttered. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />He had paused first, focusing me, <br />and I had yielded – accustomed to <br />lingering in his pauses, teetering on <br />the edge of acute awareness and <br />feeling the anticipation ripen <br /> <br />within me. When he spoke again, <br />it was in our language; the image <br />spinning already in and through <br />a shared conscious. A poet-in-pieces, <br />knelt before the open trunk, pulling <br /> <br />pages between them and arguing <br />intellectual copyright – each insistently <br />pleading on behalf of their subject, <br />their emotions, their truth, as the <br />rain began to fall from the darkening <br /> <br />sky outside. I would gently correct, <br />redirect – flinging the conversation <br />onto another path – my eyes lifting <br />as I did from the paper between us <br />to the poet before me and in <br /> <br />the sultry air of a dimly lit room <br />that we never once occupied, against <br />the backdropp of a lone streetlamp <br />and too many raindrops to count, <br />his eyes, and heart, met mine.<br /><br />Christine Austin Cole<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-evening-in-portugal/
