My mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday, so I said I

Host: The rain had been falling for hours — a gentle, persistent drizzle that blurred the city lights into smudged halos of amber and gold. Inside the small apartment, the lamps burned low, casting soft shadows over stacks of books, mugs of tea, and a single open notebook. The clock ticked quietly, filling the pauses between two people who had grown too accustomed to their own silences.

Jack sat by the window, his grey eyes tracing the trails of raindrops as they slid down the glass. His hands were rough, calloused — not from labor now, but from living. Jeeny sat across from him on the old couch, her legs tucked beneath her, a worn book of poems resting in her lap. Her hair fell loose, curling softly at her shoulders, like the shadows of thoughts she hadn’t yet spoken.

Host: The room smelled of rain, ink, and memory. It was the kind of night that asked not for answers, but for presence.

Jeeny: “You know, I read something today by Guy Johnson — ‘My mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday, so I said I wanted to read poetry with her.’”
(she pauses, smiling faintly) “There’s something so… simple about it. But so full.”

Jack: “Full of what? Sentiment?”

Jeeny: (laughs softly) “Full of truth. Of longing. Of connection. Isn’t that what poetry is for — to bridge that kind of space?”

Jack: “Or to fill the space when you can’t bridge it.”
(leans back, voice low) “People read poems because they can’t say those things out loud.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But isn’t that a kind of speaking too?”

Host: The lamp flickered, and a thin line of smoke rose from the candle beside them. Outside, a car passed through a puddle, the sound echoing like a whispered sigh. Jack reached for his cup, the steam curling against his fingers.

Jack: “When I was a kid, my mother never read poetry. She read bills. Grocery lists. Medical forms. I used to bring her things I wrote — small, stupid things — and she’d just smile, say she didn’t have time. So I stopped.”

Jeeny: “Did you ever forgive her for that?”

Jack: “It’s not about forgiveness. It’s about reality. Some people don’t have the luxury to feel deeply all the time. Poetry doesn’t put food on the table.”

Jeeny: “But it feeds something else, Jack. Something that can starve quietly — your ability to love, to wonder, to stay human.”

Jack: (grimly) “You can’t eat wonder.”

Jeeny: “No, but you can die without it.”

Host: A beat passed between them — the kind that only exists when two worlds touch without merging. The rain thickened, tapping the glass in a steady rhythm, like a second heartbeat.

Jack: “You know, there’s this thing about birthdays. People expect wishes to mean more than they do. You make one, it’s supposed to tell you something about who you are. Me — I stopped making them. They always felt like lies.”

Jeeny: “And yet, Johnson’s wish — to read poetry with his mother — that wasn’t a lie. It was a wish to return to something pure. A bridge across time.”

Jack: “Or a bridge that can’t be crossed anymore. You ever think of that? Maybe he asked for that because he knew she was slipping away.”

Jeeny: “Even then — isn’t that beautiful? To want to meet someone in words before they disappear? To say, ‘If you can’t walk with me anymore, at least read with me.’”

Jack: “That’s… tragic.”

Jeeny: “So is love.”

Host: The room quieted, as if the very walls were listening. The sound of a dripping faucet punctuated the silence like slow metronomic grief. Jeeny opened the book on her lap — Rilke, softly underlined and stained with tea rings.

Jeeny: “Listen to this one —
‘Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…’
That’s what I think Johnson was really saying — that poetry is how we love the questions, not how we answer them.”

Jack: “You sound like a college professor.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “No, I sound like someone who’s been broken enough times to know that answers are overrated.”

Jack: “So, what — you think poetry fixes people?”

Jeeny: “No. But it listens. And sometimes that’s all you need.”

Host: Jack looked at her, something shifting in his eyes — not quite belief, but not rejection either. The reflections of raindrops danced over his face, making him look both younger and tired at once.

Jack: “My mother used to hum when she cooked. Old folk songs. I never knew the words. She’d stop if I asked. Maybe that was her version of poetry — wordless, private.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it was her way of speaking when she didn’t know how. You know, not everyone reads poems with their eyes.”

Jack: “Yeah. Some people live them.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The moment hung between them, soft as the steam from their tea, fragile as an unwritten line.

Jack: “You think people still want that now? To share words like that — slow, patient, real? Everything’s too fast. People scroll through poetry now. Consume it like content.”

Jeeny: “And yet we’re still here — sitting, reading, breathing, talking. That means something. Maybe poetry isn’t dying — maybe it’s hiding, waiting for people to stop shouting long enough to hear it again.”

Jack: “You make it sound like a living thing.”

Jeeny: “It is. Poetry is the part of us that refuses to die.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice trembled slightly, not from weakness but from the quiet tenderness of belief. Jack looked down at the notebook between them, the open page empty except for one faint pencil line she’d written earlier: ‘What remains when the noise fades?’

Jack: “You really think words can bring people together like that?”

Jeeny: “They always have. From cave walls to psalms, from love letters to lullabies — words build the bridges time tries to burn.”

Jack: “And what if the person’s gone?”

Jeeny: “Then you read anyway. Because they still live in the rhythm.”

Host: A tear — or maybe a raindrop — slid down Jeeny’s cheek. Jack didn’t ask which. He reached for the book, thumbed through it until he found a page marked by a folded corner. He cleared his throat and began to read — quietly, awkwardly, as if the syllables were stones in his mouth.

Jack: (reading) “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Emerson.”

Jack: “Yeah. My mother used to quote that when she wanted me to study harder. Guess she did know some poetry after all.”

Jeeny: “Maybe she was speaking through you even then.”

Jack: (a small smile) “Or maybe I’m just remembering what I missed.”

Host: The light caught the side of his face, illuminating a kind of vulnerability that had been buried under years of armor. The rain outside had eased now — down to a slow, rhythmic tapping, like a poem’s heartbeat.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… when Guy Johnson said he wanted to read poetry with his mother, I think what he really meant was — he wanted to be seen by her. Not as a child, not as a burden, but as a soul.”

Jack: “And maybe that’s what we all want — someone to sit beside us, in the quiet, and see us for who we are beneath all the noise.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “Then maybe… maybe it’s not such a stupid birthday wish after all.”

Jeeny: “No. It might be the wisest one of all.”

Host: The rain stopped. The silence that followed wasn’t empty — it was full, resonant, alive. Jack closed the book, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke. They simply sat, surrounded by the echoes of words written long before them, words that somehow still fit the shape of their hearts.

A single ray of light from a passing car moved across the wall, painting their faces for a fleeting second — her eyes soft, his steady. It was the look of two people who had learned that poetry doesn’t belong only in books.

It lives in moments like this — in the silence after rain, in the sharing of tea, in the memory of mothers, in the unspoken understanding that love, however quiet, is the truest line ever written.

And as the clock ticked, and the city exhaled, Jack whispered — almost to himself, almost to her:

Jack: “Maybe next year… I’ll read poetry with mine.”

Host: And Jeeny just smiled — not to answer, but to listen.