Summer Journal 2012, August 25

My great college friend, Julie Bailey, often sends me a book of poems so Stell and I can read one each morning and evening while we are in Greece.  She has twice sent Garrison Keillor collections, this year Good Poems:  American Places.  On Saturday morning we read this one, and those of you who know me will understand why it resonates with me:

Bridal Shower

George Bilgere

 

Perhaps in a distant café,

Four or five people are talking

With the four or five people

Who are chatting on their cell phones this morning

In my favorite café.

 

And perhaps someone there,

Someone like me, is watching them as they frown,

Or smile, or shrug

At their invisible friends or lovers,

Jabbing the air for emphasis.

 

And, like me, he misses the old days,

When talking to yourself

Meant you were crazy,

Back when being crazy was a big deal,

Not just an acronym

Or something you could take a pill for.

 

I liked it

When people who were talking to themselves

Might actually have been talking to God

Or an angel.

You respected people like that.

 

You didn’t want to kill them

As I want to kill the woman at the next table

With the little blue light on her ear

Who has been telling the emptiness in front of her

About her daughter’s bridal shower

In astonishing detail

For the past thirty minutes.

 

O person like me,

Phoneless in your distant café,

I wish we could meet to discuss this,

And perhaps you would help me

Murder this woman on her cell phone,

 

After which we could have a cup of coffee,

Maybe a bagel, and talk to each other,

Face to face.