An Encounter

By Peter Kline

There’s something not-quite-right about you, he said.

There’s something not-quite-right about the way

you stand beside me, close enough to touch me.

I’m handsome. I know how to be gentle.

When I saw you crossing this way

I watched you cross over

straight to the spot, and stand beside me.

Foreplay to a handwashing—

the way you play with your drink,

smoothing droplets into the palm of your hand with your thumb;

with your thumb you smooth down hairs on the back of your hand.

If you know the song that’s playing, you don’t show it.

I’m careful. I know how to be lonely.

When I saw you cross over that way

I couldn’t see you, couldn’t stand the sight of you.

There’s something—something not-quite-right

in the thing you’re almost about to tell me,

what only a stranger makes safe.

You stand beside me, close enough

to tell me what no one else can hear;

I’ll bend to you halfway.

Peter Kline’s poetry has been honored with a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, the Morton Marr Poetry Prize from Southwest Review, and residency fellowships from the James Merrill House, the Amy Clampitt House, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Foundation. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry, Tin House, and other journals, and have been anthologized twice in the Best New Poets series. His first collection of poetry, Deviants, is forthcoming from Stephen F. Austin State University Press in the fall of 2013. He can be found online at www.peterklinepoetry.com.