Hat Saga

A poem for Sunday

Why did I choose to wear that hat?
It was bitter cold, that’s why I wore  
The glamorous fur: it covered enough  
Of my head to render me anonymous  
(I didn’t mean to look mysterious).

After the party we hailed a cab, happily  
Sped, warm together in the dark until,  
On an unfamiliar block, the taxi  
Stopped, not a sign or a red light in sight.  
Why did you stop? my husband said,

As a man out of nowhere appeared,  
Like a character in a sinister plot,  
Approaching the door
On the side of the car where I sat—
His face swimming close to the glass

Between us, window he knocked on  
With the knuckles of his hand, a window
That I, too startled to do anything  
But look him in the eye,
Began to roll down, roll down,

When in an instant he could see  
A face he caught sight of  
In silhouette: He must have taken me  
For someone else, what sort of person,  
What kind of woman, I do not know.  

The hat, the hat, because of the hat  
He saw someone he wanted  
Or didn’t want to see, he was waiting  
For her or never wanted to see her  
Again, she had something he needed,   

A message to relay, she owed him
Something, was there just then
For a rendezvous, or there  
By chance, not expecting him  
To find her, and the hat, my hat,

Was the dead giveaway  
Of her identity. If I took off my hat,  
He would have known right away  
Who I was not. All at once
He un-saw what he had seen,  

My ignorance of who he was,
The danger of his innocent mistake,
Evident without a doubt (his jaw,
A flicker around his jaw palpable).
And he said Go,  

Releasing us into the night,  
Touching the car door  
As if breaking a spell.  
Why did you stop? said my husband,  
Once more, as soon as the cab took off.  

I thought he was an undercover cop,
Asking me to pull over, replied the driver.
Through streets of neon ice and snow  
We fled, until Jack and I were home,  
Safe in bed, though I, sleepless  

Beside my sleeping mate, couldn’t stop  
Wondering who he thought he saw  
Before the window rolled open  
—What did and didn’t happen  
Inside the moment between—

Couldn’t, for the life of me,  
His face in the glass unsee.