Blind Date

by Jay Leeming

Our loneliness sits with us at dinner, an unwanted guest
who never says anything. It’s uncomfortable. Still

we get to know each other, like students allowed
to use a private research library for only one night.

I go through her file of friends, cities and jobs.
“What was that like?” I ask. “What did you do then?”

We are each doctors who have only ourselves
for medicine, and long to prescribe it for what ails

the other. She has a nice smile. Maybe, maybe . . .
I tell myself. But my heart is a cynical hermit

who frowns once, then shuts the door of his room
and starts reading a book. All I can do now is want

to want her. Our polite conversation coasts
like a car running on fumes, and then rolls to a stop;

we split the bill, and that third guest at the table
goes home with each of us, to talk and talk.

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About the Author

Jay Leeming is an American poet who lives in New York state.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Jay Leeming’s most recent book of poems is Miracle Atlas, Big Pencil Press, 2011. Poem copyright © 2011 by Jay Leeming and reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher.

Post Image

Detail from Alex Simpson: Little Italy, Manhattan, 2019 (Unsplash).