Impressions.
Making impressions.
Trading in impressions.
The ones I make,
The ones they try to see behind the mask.
The ones they show,
Obscuring what I need to see,
Obscured by what I want to see.

Somewhere, somehow, it’s useful,
Something they and I can use.
Between my tailored suit
And their so-carefully phrased questions,
Between the dropping of a pencil
And the pregnant or aborted pause,
A blink, a glance, caught breath, nervous laugh
A scrap of something slips out, between the walls,
Between the social and the so-called politesse.

It hangs a minute in the stillness.
While we reach, they and I, and grab
That slippery something
On which my future rests.

Do we dare to call it truth?