Orpheus alone

Orpheus, alone

Outside rimed windows sleet-locked

sidewalks resemble an empty arctic plain.

I stare and my breath rhythmically

fogs the glass.

Considering that whispered farewell of

Eurydice’s, I wrap my scarf around my neck

and, daring Winter, head out to my local

for a drink.

Orpheus, alone, ascended the final step. He sat

in mud along the riverbank, let his hands fall

empty at his sides. Eyes on the black water,

he asked Charon

in a voice octaves deeper than despair, “Must

I cross the river again?” Tim angles the bottle

across the bartop so to refill my whiskey and

a drunk woman

is in my face asking the oddest questions: Did

I ever feel lonely at crowded house parties? Did

I ever miss smoking in bars? Did I miss getting drunk

in smoky bars

and all the veils we once hid behind? When she asks

if I was with that junkie on the front stoop bathed

in orange firelight, her pupils huge and black as

she mumbled,

“Go, big red truck, go,” I counter, ask if she was

at the Mardi Gras home invasion when they shot

Brandon through the ankle and we all panicked

because we thought

they’d taken Brandi, then someone heard her crying

in the shower. Orpheus made the Furies cry – they 

never forgave him that. Some things can’t be forgiven.

Tim pours me another –

the drunk woman lets blast an icy gust as she leaves –

and Orpheus waits on the banks of the Styx, the

boatman ignoring him as the mountain 

ignores a breeze.