This Is How Lonesome Feels

• The sun goes down and the sky turns dusky
• And everything tastes like homesick
• You drape the sky around your shoulders
• And know how lonesome feels.
• Every chord is minor
• Every light dim
• And if a stranger smiles at you,
• you see regret beneath the curve of lips.
• You’ve been alone too long.
• If you count the time in twilights
• it would number a lifetime.
• You understand moths dying for the light
• The sorrowful call of the whippoorwill
• The futile signal of the firefly.
• You imagine a lifetime of loneliness.
• You picture your hair going gray
• your body loosening into a fold of wrinkles
• Your best intentions pooled at your feet
• How long since you recognized a face
• Felt the touch of a familiar hand
• A bowl of flowers on a kitchen table
• An orange, peeled and halved for you.

Judy Reeves is a writer, teacher, and writing practice provocateur who has published four books on writing, including the award-winning A Writer’s Book of Days. Her work has appeared in Waymark, The Frozen Moment, Magee Park Poets, The Exquisite Cadaver, A Year in Ink, and other anthologies. Her next book, Wild Women, Wild Voices, will be published by New World Library in February 2015. She teaches at UCSD Extension and San Diego Writers, Ink, which she cofounded. Her website is judyreeveswriter.com.