Stranger

I've been interested in strangers since middle school. Mainly due to shyness, secretly knowing others while remaining distant; inadvertently I became a stranger to them.

This poem seemed fitting in a place where I show you how I try to understand words/concepts.


Listen to Idra Novey read this poem.

"Definition of Stranger" by Idra Novey

Person not a member
of a group. A visitor,
guest, or the breast
that brushes your arm
on the subway. Person
with whom you've had
no acquaintance but who's taken
your rocking chair
from the curbside
and curls up in it
and closes her eyes.
Person in line
behind you now, waiting
for a glass of water,
or of whiskey, of elixir.
Person logging online
at the same second
from the Home Depot in Lima.
Or in search of the Dalai Lama.
Person not privy or party
to a decision, edict, et cetera,
but who's eaten
from the same fork
at the pizzeria
and kissed your wilder sister
on New Year's. Person assigned
to feed the tiger at the zoo
where you slipped your hand
once
into the palm
of somebody else's father.



"Bob's Going Into the Trunk Squarepants" by See El Photo