rich quatrone | the kind of poem that never gets published yet so many of us need

THE KIND OF POEM THAT NEVER GETS PUBLISHED YET SO MANY OF US NEED

how alone am i?
so alone i talk to myself
regularly. everyday.
so alone when i look at
my bed late at night i don’t
want to get into it.
i eat my meals alone.
i watch tv alone.
i drive my car to the library
or the health food store
and return to be alone.
i have no energy to get work
done.
i admit, i need a partner.
i admit, i hate being
almost 67 years old
and alone.
so alone i am anxious
when i take my walks
alone in the morning.
so alone i often leave
dirty dishes till the next
morning.
so alone i look into the
bathroom mirror and
see a face that frightens me,
or is foreign to me, a face
of a much older man than
i ought to be.
so alone i live in the past.
my mind skips to past moments,
scenes, events, snippets of
conversation.
so alone i think of you constantly.
i see your bed with our
pictures over it.
i see my laundry on your
bed as i fold it.
i see your son’s laundry,
so often left in the dryer,
as i fold it.
i see your bathroom.
so alone i remember
the thursday afternoons
we made love on the sly.
i see the woman in her
floral summer dress waiting
on the bench outside the old
salon as she waits for me.
so alone i hear the owner
tell me when i meet you on
fridays not to keep you
out late because you
have to be in early.
so alone i remember
our friday nights
sharing pizzas and
a salad in bradley beach.
all of this is happening now.
not in the past.
now.
you say you were married
twenty years and this is supposed
to explain things.
i say i’m the same person
i was when you met me.
i say a person at our ages
should know whether or not
he or she can be with
this other person for life.
i knew it.
you didn’t.
so alone i have this conversation
in my head and i write
these repetitive poems.
did you write today
you asked, and so
yes i did.

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