Pathos of the Momentary Smile

Like nearly all women under sixty she would have deftly

avoided meeting the eyes of an unknown man—

but occasionally an exception happens by chance

and her unconscious skill at avoidance gets instantly

replaced by a human generosity which is either

inherently feminine or gender-trained, as you please;

she glanced at me exactly when I glanced at her

in the store at the mall and so she gave me

that momentary slight smile which implies

Though many men are dangerous, and I do not intend

to suggest the slightest likelihood that you and I will

meet or talk, much less make love and

much less together conceive a sweet helpless child,

still our eyes have just met and in this there is

an undeniable contact between your humanity and mine

and you are probably coping with some difficulties

of masculine humanity while I cope with those

of feminine humanity; and so I wish you well.

Her smile said this

but I did not smile back because—

because guys don’t do that—because

we are strong and separate and firm and without softness!

So then the next moment had come and we had walked apart

in our two differently inflected kinds of routine loneliness.

Source: Thresherphobe (The University of Chicago Press, 2013)