❦Strange

Third time a strange man has approached like this

Since husband's death — and each time

Strangely, she's said at once she's married

Each time she's lied, without deciding to lie

Without deciding anything, without thought

Is it a lie? Strangely, she can't tell

but there's no safety in the truth of her solitude.

That much she knows

strange how there's no safety now in anything

❦Stranger

Stranger still, calm statement of her happiness by a stranger.

Must be a lie — he, therefore, is a liar.

She knows, feels sorrow living in her face each day

Infamous rbf, bleak constant now

Mouth clamps, levatory labii defy

Steel mask locks when she attempts to smile

Yet happiness, smile, the words he'd offered her

Biggest lie wins — was that it? or one-size-fits-all pleasantry?

He seemed . . . so solid, open and sincere

So, now, she can't assess sincerity

Strange, to have lost that, and of course unsafe.

Or does she somehow exude happiness with zero inner sense of it?

While filled with sorrow, fear, and loss?

To be alive, and be so out of touch with self —

That surely cannot be.

❦Strangest

In any broader sense, of course

Nothing's important here

Small nip of cosmic cruelty — jape from on high, quick irony

(Though notion of such irony is strange itself

Weepy, grandiosely lame)

Still, to have someone call her happy now

Remark on her smile now

Offer, now, the Bethlehem tea that she can never drink