"Thus in winter stands the lonely tree..."
        —Edna St. Vincent Millay

and there's another woman from a Hopper painting
dejected on a single bed, or gazing at a shrub
where birds strung out on firethorn berries grub
for worms that rise despondent in the rain.
The rain is sickened by its endless fall;
the clouds, exhausted, struggle to recall
brief forms they took beneath the friendless stars
that vanish toward the bleak edge of the cosmos.
                                      ...Thus in the interstellar dust
ponders the lonely god, wondering who blew up Olympus.
You do not have to be lonely, wrote a poet, who lied,
but consoled a lot of doleful people. It's lonely at the top
but better than the bottom of the pileup.
Kiss me now, my tragic anodyne.

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Copyright © 2020 Kim Addonizio All rights reserved
from A Constellation of Kisses
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission