(as appeared in Troubadour)

                     Listening


I heard that voice again today and stopped
to see if it was you.  Somehow it pleased
me, how my stomach tightened and then dropped,
and how my companion, not knowing, teased
me when I tripped there in the parking lot.
A lady, much older than you, had thrown
your voice with such precision, I forgot
the years, the several hundred miles.  Her tone
had turned a key inside my head, and down
upon the pavement, red-faced, thinking what
a silly thing it is to hear a sound
the way one wants, I wondered if I'm not
mistaking others' voices after all,
but listening for a new excuse to fall.