One Single Impression -- The Stranger

Strangers in the Troutdale Dining Room

Faded wooden floors,
chintz curtains flutter,
enticing aromas
waft from kitchen,
two lone people
adrift, waiting dinner.

A smile,
a word,
a laugh,
tendrils of connection
centripetal attraction
pulls strangers in.

A bottle of wine,
talk of work,
dreams found,
and loves let go,
until the sinking sun
sends each spinning
a separate trajectory
into the dark,
life’s gravity
fixing different orbits,
yet trailing rosy clouds
of memory
for years to come.

©sgreerpitt
July 5, 2009

Pen and ink drawing by sgreerpitt of the Troutdale Dining Room, July 1977, reproduced on a note card.

For more intriguing poems on the prompt "the stranger" see One Single Impression