CarrollBlog 5.21

A Man Alone

by Stephen Orlen

I hated breaking up and I hated

Being left, finding myself in an apartment

With an extra set of silverware and a ghost,

Impatient to be gone. Then to summon up

Who I was before the bed was full with woman.

To shift the street-mind from getting to

To slowing down and window shop. In the bar down the street,

To let my eyes simplify again, and make no judgments,

And breathe in the smoke that drifts

Through one body then another,

And find myself close enough

To...