it's the puritan afternoons,
the strict early evenings
of wintertime that get me.
how they compel philanderers
to rush home early to their wives.
the transient pieties of these men
hustle me of my paltry place in trains.
and then, those tight bus stops.
what dispensation does winter confer to lovers,
that allow them, without remorse,
to throw sickly single men
out in the snow to wait for buses
while they worship each other,
warm and ardent,
under runty waiting sheds?
I suppose, what I find blasphemous
with winter evenings
is being led into this stark procession,
toward that bus pew, severe, cold.
then on to that ride home,
that long and grinding ride home,
alone and without redemption.
