I remember : seeing them on the sides of roads : parked in shade : turning the pages : paperbacks : news : head tilted to the window : driver’s light : each in a quiet peace : I’d think of their lists of chores : yellowing at home : under the ire of a wife : old men : who would never give up : their car keys : would never turn : that last page : of privileges : now with so many : businesses dead : I see : the parking lots : filling : not with the ghosts : of patrons : but these ancient desperations : these needs : for one more story : one more yarn : about a man : pitted against the environs : battling to make it : back home to a love : who waits : patiently : denies : all comers : faithful to his memory : in love : virtuously alone
J. P. Dancing Bear is editor for the American Poetry Journal and Dream Horse Press. He is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, most recently, Cephalopodic (Glass Lyre Press, 2015), and Love is a Burning Building (FutureCycle Press, 2014). His work has appeared or will shortly in American Literary Review, Crazyhorse, DIAGRAM and elsewhere.