Unhappy Hour

This is loneliness.
pinching empty hours into flat minutes,
stealing spice from food,
unironing uniforms while you’re in them.
Busyness alone can’t fill the day
as it inches toward its end.
Work is salvation until it’s done
and then . . .
The Unhappy Hour,
no one on the next stool
nowhere near a chatterbar.
Midnight deals its lethal whimper
to what’s left of formal time
and just climbs up the clock again.

Loneliness removes time’s spine
and renders all the little bones,
leaving only grieving flesh.
For the merely solitary
solitude can be rich and full.
This is not that;
There is no fat,
only the occupant of flesh-
and time.
I didn’t know that this was illness;
I didn’t know that I was ill,
that my phone was disconnected
while I kept talking on.