Dear Reader

I greeted my neighbor on the street,

Hello! I said, jubilantly.

Her head down, she nodded,

acknowledging me, yet

saying nothing, probably thinking

any number of things. Perhaps she

was late, or unable to commit

to a single reply, or maybe

she was simply cold

on this late-February day,

rushing to get out of it.

I wonder at her, as one wonders

at the Mona Lisa -- what does she want

from us, if not nothing at all?

What is the meaning of a poem

such as this, you'll ask, and I'll say

think of it as an emotion

immortalized in stone, a statue

at which you may stare and stare

and never quite understand what

you are supposed to feel.

Do not be afraid, dear reader,

to be left wondering.