To Karin: The Unsent Letter
I called you my Magyar princess
because of your smoldering eyes
and dark hair but maybe you were
just a woman
who knew how to disappear
while standing still.
I got your number from
your grandfather five years
after you left on a trip
to visit the Brandenburg Gate
with a promise to return
in the spring.
A Florida area code,
and a man’s voice I didn’t know
picking up on the second ring.
He said you were at work at the club
and I wondered if he meant
you were an exotic dancer.
I didn’t know what to say
so I held the line for a moment,
listening to someone else’s breath
and then let it go, setting
the phone down gently
as if you might still hear.
I never tried calling again.
Some silences are too complete
for interruption, and you were
always good at leaving
before the questions started,
so I’d learned to stop asking.
I still think of you sometimes,
when the light shifts a certain way.
Your name drifts through me,
not painful, just unfamiliar,
like something once known by heart
then misplaced in another room.
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