are the first among us
in early spring to notice
the flowers, taking notes
and comparing posture.
they look strangers in the eye
like no other, as though the least
amount of recognition
were the most familiar.
they sweep lonely men off their feet,
just one encounter and the lonely men
in turn go searching for the trail
they've left through this city,
in crowded alleys, in libraries, in the park
at dusk, in a statues rust, at a trafficless
intersection. everywhere there are traces
of their presence, like a dustbowl
in its aftermath, if only the dust
were silver and the violent winds
intruded on the stillness to hold
up shelter against the oceans
of desert.
i met the loneliest of them all,
the postulate that nature offered
was now her ex-lover and recovery
would be backtracking.
lonely women are the last to be pitied,
and lonely women were not always
lonely. you must have experienced
the kind of love that is unbridled
to experience that kind of lonely.
Lonely women will be lonely
until they die, so that by the time
lovers wake up together she will
have already offered herself to the soil
so that by the time they take their first
step out of the bed she will have
already become minerals.