talking to himself in the next room.
He didn’t know you were listening.
You put your ear against the wall
but you couldn’t catch the words,
only a kind of rumbling.
Was he angry? Was he swearing?
Or was it some kind of commentary
like a long obscure footnote on a page of poetry?
Or was he trying to find something he’d lost,
such as the car keys?
Then suddenly he began to sing.
You were startled
because this was a new thing,
but you didn’t open the door, you didn’t go in,
and he kept on singing, in his deep voice, off-key,
a purple-green monotone, dense and heathery.
He wasn’t singing for you, or about you.
He had some other source of joy,
nothing to do with you at all –
he was an unknown man, singing in his own room, alone.
Why did you feel so hurt then, and so curious,
and also happy,
and also set free?
[Margaret Atwood, ‘You Heard the Man You Love’, from The Door]
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