Written by Wislawa Szymborska

Both are convinced

that a sudden surge of emotion bound them together.

Beautiful is such a certainty,

but uncertainty is more beautiful.

Because they didn't know each other earlier,

they suppose that nothing was happening between them.

What of the streets,stairways and corridors

where they could have passed each other long ago?

I'd like to ask them whether they remember--

perhaps in a revolving door ever being face to face?

an "excuse me" in a crowd or a voice "wrong number" in the receiver.

But I know their answer:

no, they don't remember.

They'd be greatly astonished to learn that

for a long time chance had been playing with them.

Not yet wholly ready to transform into fate for them,

it approached them, then backed off,

stood in their wayand, suppressing a giggle, jumped to the side.

There were signs, signals:

but what of it if they were illegible.

Perhaps three years ago,

or last Tuesday did a certain leaflet fly from shoulder to shoulder?

There was something lost and picked up.

Who knows but what it was a ballin the bushes of childhood.

There were doorknobs and bellson which earlier touch piled on touch.

Bags beside each other in the luggage room.

Perhaps they had the same dream on a certain night,

suddenly erased after waking.

Every beginningis but a continuation,

and the book of events is never more than half open.

-translated by Walter Whipple