Episode 1: Coincidence?

Facebook isn't the only place one can look for revelations. Both our characters believe (at least some of the time) in the oracle of the found. The highly appropriate song that comes up on the radio or the iTunes shuffle, the same phrase found in two completely different sources in the space of a day, et cetera. It's simply not, as Milan Kundera would point out, coincidence. (Is that the first time you've heard Kundera mentioned in a telenovela?)

In tonight's episode, our library student comes home from a long day and consults one of her daily pleasures/sanity maintainers, Poetry Daily, and comes across "Serious" by James Fenton, which - naturally - comes very close to approximating her state of mind/hopes, romantically speaking. You see, our dear library student has a knack for having crushes on people with whom relationships are unlikely to prosper in real life.

But she is trying to be patient, so she closes her window against the Boston night verging on snow, studies for a test, and goes to sleep, knowing that she still has her fellow poeta desesperada halfway across the country. More on our student's romantic and other dysfunctions...stay tuned.

By the way, here's the poem.


Serious
by James Fenton

Awake, alert,
Suddenly serious in love,
You're a surprise.
I've known you long enough—
Now I can hardly meet your eyes.

It's not that I'm
Embarrassed or ashamed.
You've changed the rules
The way I'd hoped they'd change
Before I thought: hopes are for fools.

Let me walk with you.
I've got the newspapers to fetch.
I think you know
I think you have the edge
But I feel cheerful even so.

That's why I laughed.
That's why I went and kicked that stone.
I'm serious!
That's why I cartwheeled home.
This should mean something. Yes, it does.