there are people alive today
who found it on their first try
people who married their childhood sweetheart
people who somehow happened so early
upon the point of love
in this rotting haystack
can you imagine that kind of luck
the improbability of it is so striking
like finding air in a vacuum
I cannot believe it
but there are people
who insist that it is true
I wonder if those people ever felt
a day of disappointment
in their gracefully implausible lives
because I am dashing
headlong
into my fourth decade
and I have not found another soul
who was living their life
like it was a compassionate
bank robbery
and I had always thought that by now
I would have an accomplice
someone to shout
in a voice more musical than my own
EVERYBODY ON THE FLOOR, PLEASE
THIS WILL ONLY TAKE A SECOND
I wonder what kind of lives
those first-love people
must lead
simple
I suppose
lucky
certainly
I do not know
whatever the case
may be
I just know
that I am struggling
with a strange aching
loneliness
today
still
groping for
that
needle