An Author Falls In Love With A Minor Character Poem by Hans Ostrom

I first noticed her in early scenes with
the hero. She was unremarkable,
there to get him
believably from point A to point B.
It was supposed to be geometry.

Now the hero's been in a bar
in the fourth chapter for a year.
I might as well write the scene in which
an ambulance wails down a wet street,
pulls up to the bar. He'll die there.

A telephone rings in the novel.
She walks across a room
to answer it. It's me. I tell her
I've thrown it all over, all those
other lives, given up all plots for her.

I ignore how foolish I sound asking
"Where would you like your life
to take you? What kind of smile
shall I invent for you? " She says,
"Oh, you shouldn't do all that for me."

There's something in her voice
I haven't heard before. A certain
calculation. I consider the prospect
of following her
through my mind's streets. I'm alarmed.

She says goodbye, replaces the receiver,
gently, crushes out a cigarette. I write,
"...crushes out a cigarette..." on the screen,
hate it. I'm unable to stop. I write only
to find out more about her.

hans ostrom 2017