This scene from a movie begins
aloof. Classical guitars score
my journey through shop-outlined streets.
Wide angle shot arrives at me
on park bench, gray scarf, black overcoat,
single white male. Slow zoom
introduces twelve red roses
upright in fist-clutched sheets of
hand-scribbled sonnets. The evening,
adagio in anticipation
of low-strung cellos, disappears
in six successively closer cuts of me
examining my watch,
feigning to be out of spare change,
ignoring a sky-scraped sunset,
examining my watch thrice more.

Between them, suddenly soprano
violins announce "the moment."
The audience knows I know.
Which grieves more: her rejection
or the inevitability of conclusion?

Before it began, we disbelieved its end
goes thus: Yellow streetlights
subdue dusk, flood night, count loss
like hour hands of denial. I retreat
down ill-lit sidewalks, hands in pockets,
face hidden in bowed languish. Roses
slip from tired hands to unknown curbs.
The audience's trained chorus of "ohhh"
counterpoints escalated strings,
mocks the unoriginality of heartbreak,
gives way to silence.
Then, an immobile camera's black fade—
my head raised finally to city-filtered night,
the only thing lonelier than love.