I don't know when it happened, but I have grown
too old or too lazy to read the subtitles of foreign movies,
snippets of dialogue scrolling across the bottom of
another language I can never hope to understand.
We used to watch them nearly every weekend,
caught the classics and the obscure at film festivals,
along with the old Hollywood variety, all those beautiful
made-up faces speaking as though they came from
nowhere in particular, a place we longed to be.
You always said that people should come with subtitles,
and -- most of us, at least -- with warning labels.
I sometimes wish for a translation of all the things
you did not say, every ellipses when you looked away,
though you are now beyond the world of words.
I do miss sharing a language, speaking in shorthand.
Last week, I let an old black-and-white movie run,
the sound turned down to a muffled whisper,
while I dozed off. I could comprehend the passion
well enough, occasional bursts of anger, the wariness
that men and women always bring to each other.
I could understand it this way, the sudden slamming
of a door, sad eyes gazing from a cloudy cafe window,
the rushing toward a train, its smoke a signature.
I could imagine then how it all worked out.
