All the Places I Don’t Go Anymore

There’s the airport, to start.

I must confess I don’t miss it,

though its mean to an end

would be nice about now.

There’s the downtown café—

take your pick—with its corner

table and aural clatter 

and espresso machine hiss.

Bookstore aisles, nightclubs;

anywhere where people gather.

I stopped going to laundromats

years ago, and don’t take the bus,

but I’d think twice entering either. 

Same for bathhouses, brothels, 

and drug dens. Not my scene, 

but I miss them too.

And loud newsrooms, slaughter-

houses, and assembly lines:

it’s lucky I can forgo them. 

Bars, of course. A few 

sell you a pint in a plastic-cup

and let you sit out back. 

I’ve done that, bundled up 

from the cold. It’s lonely fun.

It’s the going out, really,

I crave. Having a thing to do. 

It’ll come back; I’ll be patient. 

But what if these places, 

and the scenes they contain,

aren’t the same upon return?

Sebastian Matthews