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The bus-boys at the Aqua Grill are whistling
Sweet Susie … Oh Susie Q … Oh I love you
and I wonder, how do they know my name?

My skirt like flame around my knees I watch
my pointed toe meet with a sudden engraving,
a finger-sloppy tracing in frozen cement: Hi Suzy

And it seemed that things could not be
this connected – like that redhead just now,
how could she have known as our pathways collided

which side I would veer to yet we gracefully pass,
a dance I know well. And that white dog
leashed laxly by its white-dog owner jingles bells

on its collar to the tune in my head. Hell I know
they weren’t whistling Sweet Susie, come on now,
that’s not even the name of the song. But this greeting

before me I swear – do you believe me? –
it’s there, you can find it – was calling my name.
Not two steps after my silly invention it appeared

there before me to call out my bluff. When the world
spells around us its everyday magic all the time
right before us and under our feet we can sense

its shy seamstress watch leaves spinning sideways,
feel wind wrap round us and sweep back our hair.