I’m watching love stories on TV.
Getting up, stumbling in the half-dark,
confused, foolish, simple;
touched by love stories on TV.
Elizabeth Shue reminds me of you.
Sweet Elizabeth could love me — forever,
in a TV love story.
But now, reading the sad poetry
of dead Jack’s daughter on the toilet
(still touched by the TV love story)
in the late night quiet absence
of another heart beating, I wonder:
why I returned to this city, desperate;
drinking coffee and reading Jack’s column —
alone in the grey morning —
touched by sex and violence on TV.
Is it come to this melancholy
dark night, pacing the empty hallway
(even my cat went to the wild dogs on the hill)
shaking off the last sensation,
the touch of a love story on TV?
Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets 