Your story about the tavern: how heartsore
with loneliness you found a watering hole near-
only three streets over. You went in the door
to a world of sweat, darkness, and stale beer.
Only to see a patron and his woman
at the bar, his hand stroking her behind,
as though the invisible ones had brought you in
to see more clearly what you would surely find.
Not then the honky-tonk girl of days long past,
you felt a certain stirring of the light.
"Is this what you want?" an inner voice asked.
The exit was your answer. And so good-night.
I felt your victory, raised from that catacomb.
Refusing the lesser is half of what brings us home.