We wake to urban silence: to each day, its loneliness.
Newspapers list the names, now gone; it’s loneliness.
One face among thousands, subway in a rush,
humanity’s obscured fray, it’s loneliness.
Scarred city of traveling ghosts, Queens
to Brooklyn, lost in quays: it’s loneliness.
Sirens from surrendering streets. Neighbors
retreat from neighbors, it’s loneliness.
A lone daisy between concrete,
we smell this skeletal spring, its loneliness.
Mary, there’s no escape, temporary or permanent.
Accept your mirrored reflection—its loneliness.
Mary Warren Foulk has been published in VoiceCatcher, Cathexis Northwest Press, Yes Poetry, Arlington Literary Journal (ArLiJo, Gival Press), and Palette Poetry, among other publications. Her chapbook, If I Could Write You a Happier Ending, is forthcoming from dancing girl press. A graduate of the MFA Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Mary lives in western Massachusetts with her wife and two children. She is an educator, writer, and activist.
Image: “That’s Wales” by Jonathan Silverman
Pine Hills Review 