Grace, Fallen from. Marianne Boruch

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      A MOMENT

      Maybe it’s common, this sort

      of first meeting. But once, before a guest house

      in Germany, the friend

      of a friend to come by, and dinner—

      that’s it, we’ll go to dinner, have the famous

      spargel, that rare white asparagus, only

      in May, our evening pre-arranged by phone,

      by email. I need to say again we

      hadn’t met. Outside I stood

      at the door, it being spring, every tree

      gloriously poised. And a stranger,

      another woman, she too waiting

      but near the curb, looking

      this way and that, attentive to traffic, hours

      from dusk because we were north,

      near the sea. And tall, she was towering,

      older than I was, hugely

      made-up, such meticulous work

      behind that elegant finish. Then the friend

      of my friend—could that be?—his

      parking, his pulling himself

      out of that tiny car.

      Please understand. I’m usually

      right there rushing in, because the world

      requires that, loves the quickening

      of that. But I was

      or I wasn’t. Or I was small

      but there is smaller. To my left, a door.

      Some tree flowering at my right.

      I watched as he

      to that woman said my name

      so charmingly, a question, tilting

      his head, are you . . . ? sorry to disturb,

      are you . . . ? And in that pause—

      her vague focusing on him, her loose

      finding him now—I leaned forward,

      simply curious: what

      would she say? smile? yes? tell him yes?

      So thread breaks. So water in a glass

      clouds and maybe it clears.

      So I waited, giving up

      everything, to anyone,

      just like that.