Fourteen Lines in Rough Draft Beside a Jukebox

He was listening to Buffy St. Marie singing "Cod’ine,"
thinking of dope, booze, addiction, and began writing:
"To my old love, far away now, very much alive
and very loved, and she’s not alone, I stopped too
in time to start living again" . . . in his memory banks,
the seemingly deliberate way it surely seemed to her
how he stayed out until bars closed and he came home
and could not help but wake her, his vigil perverse:
he wanted her and everything required to have a life
with her, say, one they could share after all, proud of
the lyric poet with a prose style and his beautiful wife
brilliant not only when she entered with her own light
a room but with intellect kindling fire, igniting minds.
And asked himself, How do I forgive myself after that?

(II: 24 September 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander