there is a place called lonely

  
   
she has a guiding star, she tells me. it serenades her with    
lustful lullabies, dancing colors like a rainbow. it corrupts  
her with tales of adventure & romance. she entreats, through  
her tears, that it offers more passion than she could ever get  
from this dreary little town. or me.  
   
there is a road that has never been travelled, & she’s always wanted    
to be a runaway. she’s predestined (she used that word) to follow    
that star to exotic horizons. all the way to Australia, maybe…  
   
one rainy day I returned home to find our cottage abandoned. the  
silence spoke, saying simply: she’s gone. the closet door half opened,  
empty hangers still swaying slightly. her dressing table, vast & barren,  
haunted by the ghosts of perfume bottles, votive candles, a music box.  
trinkets & baubles. her notebook….. her notebook.  
each timid spectre wept in its loneliness. even the mirror missed her.  
   
…sunsets & full moons still happen, I suppose. but I’m joyful to avoid    
them in the amnesiac seduction of whiskey. when the bottle runs    
dry & the sleepy-eyed barmaid escorts me to the embracing arms    
of the night, I roam the scarlet streets, & reckon the great american  
sorrow in which I’m incarcerated:  
   
it’s an alluring, dangerous dream, & if you stray into it, you’ll be  
lost in the dark for the rest of forever, without a drink or a smoke.  
& your heart? you might as well leave it with the hat check girl,    
along with your sanity. it’s a dead weight, it's a thousand-lb anchor  
that will drag you to the very bottom of the river of no return.  
   
somewhere long ago & far away, on a dimly lit stage, Elvis tenors  
out an old tune. it’s a skyfull of teardrops, & it’s the redundant lyric  
of my life –  
   
was there ever a fool such as I…  
   
   
(art by Steve Hanks)