Another Spin on the Loneliness Wheel
Marc Swan

She lives alone in her Studio City home
in need of repair,
near the Farmer’s Market,
won’t wear ear plugs ‘cuz you just never know,
met a man thru JDate,
set up a weekend together in Cambria halfway
from Oakland where he lives
and the San Fernando Valley where she lives,
took a freshly baked apple pie,
a bouquet of white roses for the room.
When they met she had misunderstood.
He smelled like beer,
hadn’t shaved,
wore wrinkled clothes.
In their phone calls he had been considerate,
kind in fact,
obsequious to a fault she found
and here she is four hours from home
planning her escape.


 

About the Author: Marc Swan lives in Portland, Maine. His poems recently published or forthcoming in Passager, Big Muddy, Crannóg, Gargoyle, Poetry New Zealand, Toad Suck Review, Westerly, among others. His third collection, Simple Distraction, was published by Tall-Lighthouse, London, England, in 2009. He recently left the regular work-a-day to focus on writing, travel and music, not necessarily in that order. He lives with his wife Dd in Portland Maine.
.

---