Vers libre, in defiance of good advice

The chance meeting

A flicker of recognition in a crowded mall.
Eyelids bat, walking slows.
A halt.

All words, all feelings;
All hopes, fears, loves, and all despair;
All midnight torrents of unuttered pleas
Are strangled in one single grunt.

'How are you?'
'I'm fine.'

The years of anguish, months of still unwritten verse,
Crash round our feet,
Which take their own course,
And walk us away,
In opposite directions.