ROMANCE

To spend Christmas Eve
at Nathan's
in Coney Island
eating a hot dog,
while the rain
whips up mischief
& magic
is about as romantic
as it gets.

It will be an empty
shelter for a few
figures huddled
in an embrace
of whispers,
mustard biting
their lips, ketchup
staining their french fried fingers.

A clatter
of trains
at the end
of their lines
huffing
into terminals
as useless as prayers
offered up to love
proffered for the sea
slapping against the darkness
a few steps from civilization.

I will have worked
a half day, trying
to unlock the gates
swinging against the souls
smashed against odds
they inherited. I've come
from the same asylum
and wrap myself in our disease.

Another frank? I ask.
My hands grip a bill
& I fish it out.
We are a long way from heaven,
but a very long way from hell.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016