Reading Poetry to Someone in a Restaurant

They hadn't noticed me. They did not know that I could hear them.



He read part of a poem to her. It was clear from the pacing of his voice that he was reading poetry. It was clear that he had probably done this before with her.

I waited for her response and wondered whether it would betray any touch of the self-conscious, the impatient, the dismissive.

On the contrary, her words -- low and admiring -- expressed appreciation. And appreciation not because he had read a poem aloud to her in a restaurant but because the poem deserved appreciation. It was part of a long conversation between them, I sensed, and a conversation that never relegated a meal out to a distraction or a diversion. No, it was the conversation that took them out. It was the conversation that took me in.