Something in Common                                       


            It’ll never work, said my friends, and I have to admit
            When I looked at it that way,
            Like a spreadsheet or a Venn diagram,
            They were right: there wasn’t much
 
            She liked Eighties europop and I liked Fifties bebop,
            Which should have scared me off right from the start, I guess
 
            She never used chopsticks at a Chinese restaurant
            And I never could do without them
 
            Hot yoga was her idea of cool
            But I didn’t much relish twisting or sweating,
            Especially not simultaneously
 
            She had fixed opinions about virtually everything
            And brooked no discussion
            Whereas I muddled along rounding corners
            Instead of turning them
 
            When she talked – which wasn’t much –
            It was nuts and bolts in a language that could have been
            Greek to me
            (Although it wasn’t)
 
            And I couldn’t tell whether my rhapsodic eloquence
            About the sheen of her hair or the contour of her calf
            Went over her head or right through her (fetching) ears.
 
            But in that in-between time of stars and stillness
            Things happen
 
            Down in the garden beneath our window
            I could swear we set off a chorus of critters
            Who have something in common


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            Emanuel E. García, Leaf Thoughts, One Hundred Poems2013