Bobby Alone

                  In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning.

                                                                           F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm sitting in a chair naked, wanting to love
with my body hers, with what I have
that she will give me. Desiring impossible
relations, I may need to go to her,
I was never a coward,
in the presence of women.
What was I, then? Why was I loved at all?
I, who have the love I did not return.
The few women who filled my heart
would have me smile instead of weep.

I have always believed in luck,
what I was taught by my gambler father
and the mother of my mother,
the families Murphy and St. Clair,
spawn of the green, fierce catolica
bent against the British tryrants
whose orange Cromwell pikes impaled heads
to set the tone for centuries of war
the invader was always meant to lose.
Still, the enemy haunts my heart.

Why go on when my grief seems insincere,
gratitude a con to garner kisses . . .
I, merely one among millions,
get up, dress, go to La Iglesia
de San Juan de la Cruz
to be with my patron saint on his feast day,
December 14, 1965,
de la noche oscura del alma,
I pray on my knees, in my heart
el dia de la resurreccion . . .

(8, 15 April 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander