How Many Things Go Through My Mind Poem by Gert Strydom

(after Herman de Coninck)

How many things go through my mind
when she does phone and say: "I just want to hear how it's going
and why are you not sending me any more electronic mails
or did you loose my address? "

So as if she did not break the relationship
and each time when I wonder why she is phoning
she says directly:
"Do not write anything personal to me."

It's then that I can feel the line getting hot,
when game for a fight she asks: "Are you getting angry?
What is wrong? "
and I want to leave her and the subject just right there,

do want to silence the telephone eternally
and I hear her swallow
when I do bring the conversation to an end
and do wonder why she is phoning?

[Reference: "Wat een gebrek aan pathetiek" (With a lack of being pathetic) by Herman de Coninck.]