Solitary

You might be in a box

That opens with electric locks.

Eventually, indifference

Becomes your pulse:

You forget

to care.
Or even

That you should.

There’s no right.
It’s all wrong;
You absorb the bad

Cause there’s nothing good.

Once a day you take

A lone trudge into a tiny yard

Where you look for faces

That don’t exist.

The punishment isn’t the time.

It’s the isolation.

And all you once knew

Or maybe need to recall

Slowly fades

Into a nothing

That has no end.

How did I get here?

When can I leave?

The dance floor is packed

With sweat and pending lust.

It’s a rocker that gets it,

And as the drums punctuate

The heat, you stand to the side

Of the gym floor, still in

your street shoes, out of tune

with a sock hop and its rules.

You asked one girl to go, but

she’d already said yes to

that guy who cracked your rib

in gym class for being a smart ass.
You feel pretty dumb anyway.

One of the couples leaves the floor.

He’s got a hand in her blouse,

And her face is hot. They’re headed

To his sports car and, most likely,

Heaven on earth for a few moments.

You watch them hurry, imagining

It might be you, but you know

That won’t happen.

You don’t have a car.

Why am I here?

When can I leave?

Third Avenue on a Friday

Just a bit past noon.
Heavy rain sweeps in,

And as the crowd hurries;

You see a woman without an umbrella,

Getting drenched, looking lost.

She’s extraordinarily beautiful,

Even for Manhattan, but as you approach

She smiles. Then she speaks.
She’s Canadian and doesn’t know better.

“I’m trying to find my husband. He’s

at Larb Ubol in Hell’s Kitchen.
Do you know where that is?”

Nodding yes — your tiny apartment on 49^th st.

is two blocks from that Thai place,

where an order of garlic noodles

burned your mouth just the other day

when you ate one of the red peppers

by mistake. Mammoth mistake, actually.

The rain comes harder, and by then,

the woman’s dress is so wet that

it shares the details of her body

in a way that is totally unfair.

You hold the umbrella mostly

Over her and begin the cross

From the east side to the west.
Twenty minutes later, you watch

Her go into the restaurant, where

She hugs her husband. They were married

Two days ago in Niagara Falls.
And they came to New York

For a week of bliss.

She told you her story,

A stranger, in Manhattan,

In a heavy storm as if

You were in a small village,

Safe from the modern world.
She looked you in the eyes,

And that rarely happens in the city

Unless somebody wants to rob you.
Or fuck you.

You linger another moment,

Watching her slide into the booth

And her husband glancing out the window,

And not seeing you at all. You never existed.

A cab hits a puddle and drenches you,

It’s June, so it could have been worse.

But as you turn up Ninth Avenue,

A different coldness finds you.
You might be in a cell,

Or by yourself at a high school dance

Or on that day, just another wet,

Silent New Yorker,

Caught somewhere between

What you dream and what you dread.