Wright

During exams of my second term in university, the pianist found me in the Fiction section of the library. “I knew that was you,” she said, leaning in for la bise. “A year has passed.”

“Eight months,” I noted, but went along. Sitting across at a table, she gave me a volume of poetry. At her insistence, I read aloud: “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, / And God fulfills Himself in many ways, / Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.” My diction made her laugh, and she read it back to demonstrate. Something other than Tennyson’s meter stuck out. “Your accent is gone,” I said.