Hole
Ode to Getting Dumped in an Email
The room is very dark.
I can only see
the shape of her eyes
but even so I know
that she is not familiar.
It’s just like
she said
it’s just like there’s a hole
she said
right there.
And she’s holding her hands out
between us,
in a gesture of grace,
like holding an imaginary bread loaf,
to show me where
in my torso
this void supposedly exists.
I said
What does that mean
even though I knew what it meant
and I must have seemed surprised
that she could see it.
It’s right there
she said
like a hole
Like this thing you carry
she said
that wants to be filled up
but also you don’t want it
filled up
because you have made yourself
so strong
she said
by keeping it empty.
It’s almost like.
And then that was all.
It just sort of hung there
and she was silent.
I said
It’s almost like what
even though I knew like what
and I must have seemed afraid
to be exposed.
But silence.
A thing that fills the hole.
Quickly overcome by the sounds
of the bar,
a patter of carried voices,
muffled murmur of endless
other conversations,
some music playing that
I don’t remember,
but undoubtedly something apropos
and also then
the city beyond that.
My vision fixed
on the sympathetic flame
of the candle burning
on the table between us.
I should look up now
I said to myself.
The room is very dark.
I can only see
the shape of her eyes
but even so I know
that she is not familiar.
I chose this dark nostalgic place,
a bar right off Union Square.
It may have been the place
we went on our first date
which only means something now
in the retelling of it.
She broke up with me in an email
a couple of months before.
She broke up with me in an email.
Technically I suppose it happened
in the subject line.
We didn’t speak in that time.
In the time since then.
I hadn’t seen her
but I asked her to meet me
again in this place because
I thought I needed resolution.
That’s the word I used,
if you can believe it.
Resolution.
And not even getting the pun
until this moment.
The room is very dark.
I can only see
the shape of her eyes
but even so I know
that she is not familiar.
All at once
I could feel the void,
a comforting friend.
I knew that everything she said
is undeniably correct.
I said
Do you want another drink
even though I knew we were
having another drink.
And as I walked to the bar
I felt naked and relieved.
Steve Spehar
New Orleans, 2021
