Tunnel of Love

Tunnel of Love

The vendor smirked as he handed me
a ticket. I slipped into my small craft
and a man pushed me off.

Ahead of me two shadows melted
together in a Spanish galleon
called Paradise Lost.

Why had I come here? The lights
winking in the arcades,
and couples lined up for rides
like couples outside chapels

in Vegas, kissing as if
this were the last night
on the planet, had pushed me
to find a place

out of the lights. But now
it was obvious I had made
a wrong decision. Hadn't I always shied
from contact, though I longed for it?

Everywhere couples clutched
in the darkness. I hunched down
in my boat, terribly

adrift.