C4 antho - Chamber Four

Men Alone
_________
by Steve Almond
from Drunken Boat
You see them there almost by accident, through a window
from a rolling car. They are at once recognizable as
members of a tribe coming to believe in the absurdity of their
bodies, drifting through rooms whose few flourishes, supplied
by old girlfriends, now seem vindictive.
There’s a TV, a phone, a few chairs. They do just enough
to keep the place from ants. Afternoons, taken by a brief
whimsy, they dance alone. At night they reach into cupboards
for hidden sweets and make lists of things to be done
the following day. They read magazines on the can, renewal
cards molting the carpet. Sometimes their hands come loose
and fall into their laps and dream a few minutes of women
they will never see in church, a last stamp of decency worn
away on the sofa nearest the window where they sleep on
those certain evenings, the radiant concern of news anchors
a lullaby onto them in socks. You could stare into these windows
for years and not see anything essential or shocking,
only the last rites of men who would pay any price to be you,
and have.