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Our Words. by Patrick O'Connor

 


Patrick O'Connor is a Facebook friend.   I have never met him (more's the pity).  We are Facebook friends via his wife Lisa Smith O'Connor.  I know Lisa, her parents and her sister from my Pittsfield, MA  days when they were members of the parish I served.

Patrick's poem speaks deeply to me.


our words
my words approach yours
in this room they loop
knot and slip
loose, having travelled
far through their own
silencings and retreats
their preemptive triumphs
and garbled
misunderstandings
they’ve been forming
since we formed
and they seem to know
as they mingle and flirt
in the space between us
an intimacy that we
sometimes
forget



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