Lament #57

Photo by Brad on Unsplash

In the year of the return of despair
The dealers drive their black muscle cars
From parking lot to parking lot always
Bereft of customers this time of day
When old men errant on quests too tame
For fierce youths who, in idling cheap sedans,
Await their women who graze in loud aisles
Crammed with cardboard containers, plastic jars,
Bottles made to squeeze expelling contents
Our great-grandparents would not recognize.
And the old men and young women crossing paths
Share glances and shy smiles never mistaken
As flirtation but as semaphore glyphs
Spelling their despair as mundanity
Swallows their souls.