Another spin on the loneliness wheel
She lives alone in her Studio City home
in need of repair
near the farmers’ 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.
—Marc Swan
This article appears in December 2016.
