somewhere waiting

So many of us are grateful to Susan Thomsen (and OG Poetry Fridayer) for inviting us to participate with her in responding to a poetry prompt mentioned by David Lehman in his intro to The Best American Poetry 2025: to write a short poem starting with the final line of Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: 

                                                            “I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

She's hosting today at Chicken Spaghetti and I have this to share--looking forward to all the stoppings, all the somewheres!

I stop somewhere waiting for you

It’s unclear where I've stopped
or who you’ll be, but I’m ready to settle
here, in a pool of shade or a beam of sun, 
with you.

It’s hard to know how it will happen.

You may emerge from a dressing room,
turning before the mirror in a new striped sweater,
dragging your eyes across mine, deliberate.

Or I may rush from my park bench to chase
you with the glove you just dropped.

You may stand just before me in line
to buy popcorn for the movie, the movie
we’re both seeing alone.

Or I may step into a repurposed phone booth
and dial 0, and you’ll be the stranger who picks up
in some faraway city.

I stop here, somewhere, waiting for you,
waiting to fall in love with someone

I’ve never met.

draft ©HM 2026