The Wordless Romance

I spotted her
Sitting alone
Whiling away
The hours
Fishing from a pier
On a distant
Panamanian shore.
She was young,
Perhaps eighteen
Years old,
Kind of pretty
And kind of not,
But her loneliness
Was obvious
And drew me in.
I approached her
And asked
If I could sit
Beside her,
But she spoke
Neither Spanish
Nor English,
And I had to
Resort to pantomime
To get my point across.
Her eyes ceded
Hesitant acceptance
To my proposal,
So I joined her
And we each sat
In strained silence,
Unable to communicate
Our thoughts.
As we both relaxed,
We wordlessly
Got to know
Each other.
After a while
I went over to
A local food stand
And bought a pizza
Which we shared.
Eventually she handed
Me her pole
And let me
Do the fishing
While she quietly watched.
The next morning
She was there
Waiting for me
Just as I hoped
She would be.
Each morning
She would greet me
With her shy smile,
And we would
Spend the day
Basking in the warmth
Of our togetherness.
By the fourth day,
I realized that
We were dating,
And it continued that way
For another week
Until one day
She disappeared
And I never
Saw her again.
I don’t even know
Who she was,
Or where she was from,
But to this day
I still fondly remember
Our times together
And the passion
Of the romance we had.