their spines are straight -
two different trees in two different woods.
people like them are not meant
to come face to face.
is this the first time the distance between them is silent?
emptied of political din, hoarse
shouts of protest in market squares,
flags unfurled not in love for a country
but in hate for the other.
are enemies still enemies when they are of the same space?
the two girls recognize
that their hair curls in the same way.
they don't reach out to touch
but a curiosity forms a thread between them.
a thread. their fingers tingle, flutter
spooling and unspooling
this new connection, this new thread.
their eyes swing like pendulums.
how new, how strange to breathe
in air that is clean of artificial hate.
they are curious, spooling and unspooling.
what will happen to this thread?
for threads are too easy to break.
and each knows the power of governments,
their ability to dangle them
then break
and break and break.
the two girls wonder. the two girls stare.
they look. they look and look.
but their spines are straight -
two different trees in two different woods.
I wrote this poem in a class that has a heavy theatre component. The exercise was to watch two people stare at each for a couple of minutes, observe this interaction and write a scenario prompted by what we saw. I imagined the two girls I was observing as people from two politically opposed countries, meeting for the first time.