Fill in
the blank with four
letter words, with shattered
travel plans, human contact in
tatters.

Rolling
across floor boards
in search of any face
you might recognize from eyes
and forehead.

Indoors
alone again,
lucky to be alive
to live through this without gasping
for breath.

No more
tears streaming down
cheeks while standing in
a crowd, the band playing its third
encore.

No more
memories to
make, share with anyone.
Remember how you said you wished
you could

become
a hermit just
like Thoreau? “Not till we
have lost the world, do we begin
to find

ourselves
and realize . . . the
infinite extent of
our relations.” Walking the whole
way round

the pond
is no joke. Is
the only way to get
out of bed in the morning, the
only

choice left,
a slow run toward it,
count the curves in the next
circle left to draw with what
remains.

Note: Thanks to Henry David Thoreau for a few choice words from Walden.