Driving home a little lit last night
(God protects drunks and Irish girls, right?)
this thought sideswiped me at a stoplight:

I don’t believe that love can last forever.
If I had to choose between safety and danger,
Gentle Reader, can you guess the answer?

Most nights I like the bed empty,
my arms a startled parenthesis.
(But should a spinster be this greedy?)

Will I always want to wake up alone?
Tonight, awakened by the shrill of the phone,
mistaking the twilight for the dawn,

I want a voice I’ve never heard
to speak in a language that has no word
for sadness. When will I learn?