More Poetry!

By Hal Sirowitz, from before, dur­ing, and after

Believ­ing in Fate

I don’t have a tele­phone, she said,
so I can’t give you a number.
I’m not a great fan of planned dates.
But if I hap­pen to bump into you
on the street I’d be will­ing to go for coffee.
Let’s leave it to chance. It brought
us togeth­er once. It could work a sec­ond time.
You could help fate along by hang­ing out
in Chelsea. That’s where I live. If I
gave you any more infor­ma­tion I’d be cheating.

The Wind Throws Back

I lied when I told you I did­n’t have
a phone num­ber, she said. I wasn’t
sure about you, but now that I know
you’re sane & responsible–aren’t you?–
I’m going to throw cau­tion to the wind
&hope it does­n’t blow back in my face.
But if you ever spent any time in a men­tal hospital
I’d like to know. I won’t let
it prej­u­dice me against you.
I’m will­ing to give you a chance,
pro­vid­ed you get a let­ter from a psychiatrist
stat­ing your case was closed.