New Girl

If you meet a beautiful woman for the first time,
do you know something about a person?

You can cover a lot of ground
looking for coins from a bicycle.

You must have a plan, Padua says.
I follow that bird, its wing of shade,

through the rusty weeds. I phone
a woman and make things up.

I am never done.
I know a restaurant on the river

with raccoons out the window. This new girl—
her voice steady as a fish ladder.

She is everything I want to do. My kind of lies
agree with her. And there's too much said.

Copyright © 2008 John Whalen All rights reserved
from Chelsea
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission