Jamie Doom...

answers his own rhetorical questions.

Familiar Stranger

I think I should know

when I’m looking at

a picture of me. But instead,

I squint hard, tilt my head

and whisper

vaguely

"that’s me."

That person isn’t me.

I’ve twirled

in rain-soaked shoes

at a wedding

then argued the

finer points of economics

at a funeral. I’ve

found a sentence here

while misplacing

volumes of words there.

I’ve laughed till my eyes hurt

at jokes in a dialect I’ve never heard,

and cried once or twice almost like

I meant it.

I’ve asked

and received the kindness of

strangers who seem to

recognize me even though

they’ve never been to America.

I’ve been kicked

getting on a train in Suzhou. I’ve

kissed a pretty girl, cute babies,

old ladies, lost friends, black cats,

a lame dog, and the last paragraph

of a book. The dog kissed me back.

My smallest niece has

held my hand—all her fingers

around one of mine—while

smiling for no reason.

That person looks like me, but he hasn’t

lost enough love, or seen enough

tea leaves, or sang enough sadness.

Not yet.

posted by: jmedoom at August 22, 2005 13:18 | link | comments (2) |
poetry, china, jamie doom

Comments:

#1  23 August 2005 - 14:56

 

Jamison- am I the old lady? Is this a joke? You are supposed to write about me and I get a few words in the form of introspective poetry? Try again.

Anonymous

#2  23 August 2005 - 15:28

 

Patience, you will get your own month of poetery with all the proper anguish and angst which will positively make your head swim.

Anonymous

Comments: