to talk less
 
you say you’re going to talk less, be other than the person I know, circumscribe, filter the tender parts that overflow, the quirks that spill . . . 
 
you say you embarrass yourself, always after the fact, trying to clean up, like the time you went on about the leaky faucet in your condo, the time you went on about the city’s threat to your father’s tree stand, the time you went on about the boy at your window with
an offer
to be
your
lover . . .
 
all times
that tell me
you
are all there,
there for those
who would listen,
and be charmed,
 
like me,
 
enough anyway
to write this poem,
which might never
have been written
had I met you
sometime later,
       I mean,
             after
you decided
   to talk less


* Alan Girling used to write fiction but these days it's mainly poetry. He suspects his old stories were really poems in disguise. Examples of both can be found in Blue Skies, Hobart, The MacGuffin, Smokelong, Six Sentences, Ken*again, and ink sweat and tears among others.