by Neil Carpathios

 

Today a stranger said, “I love you.” Said it looking right at me, a few feet away

    as he turned around before entering the store, although it was intended for

    

    the woman he thought was beside him who had stopped to adjust her shoe.

He was embarrassed but it was too late. He couldn’t take them back. I wouldn’t

 

give them back. The words were mine now, precious. I added them

    to my collection. Some people collect coins, stamps,

 

    shark’s teeth. I keep them in an echo chamber inside

my skull where I play them back whenever I want.

 

I’ve mostly snagged words of my mother and father and wife and children,

    but now and then something like this happens. You never know

 

    when you’ll crave a stranger’s love. So his words are in there, catalogued,

saved. He smiled and shrugged and said “I meant I love her,” pointing

 

to the woman on the sidewalk. But words are birds

    sprung from a cage—once you say them, bye bye.

 

    He held the door open for me, and I smiled back as I passed through,

and I winked, and said, “I love you too.”