I don’t remember what we were arguing about,

only that we were in public — in Hugo’s

on a Friday night, winter as much as it can be

in Fayetteville, and in case you haven’t been,

the red door to the cafe is below street level and

inside the heating pipes are red and exposed,

and the lights burn red as well. That night

it was so crowded it was hard to hear, so

we felt free to keep going while we waited

for a table — spiteful, vicious, everything

below the belt, the kind of fight where after a while

you have no idea what you have said

much less believe, only that you are trying

to stay afloat on your little raft of words

and not let the other party wipe you out.

But over the cackle of glasses and forks

we kept having to say What? Could you repeat that?

and You want me to cough? Even seated

at a round two-top too small to hold our plates

and the drinks we desperately wanted by then,

it did not stop. We sat in the red-checkered

red-lit din and let that argument swell and thin

like an inflating balloon, our coats

being knocked off our chairs by people

on their way out, and it wasn’t until we asked

the waitress what we owed that she said

Nothing; a stranger had paid our bill for us

and told her not to tell us until he had gone.

All the way home in the new snow —

silent, now, abashed — we wondered

who he was, if he could hear,

whether he loved or pitied us.