Neruda

There's a laugh that emanates from teenage girls when they want to be noticed by boys. It's a vile, unnatural shout echoing right now in an American mall.

I heard an old Liberian make the same sound as she left a hospital flanked by friends.

Only the woman wasn't laughing.

And nobody noticed but me.

I wonder who she lost. I've never seen a grown-up weep with such shameless, public agony.

If I ever have to feel that way, may I live somewhere I can scream it out freely.

I watched her from my hot, parked car and thought of a poem I used to read and read and read.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her. 

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.

And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass. 

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.

My heart searches for her and she is not with me. 

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,

and this may be the last poem I write for her.