My eyes hurt. Lack of sleep, unfulfilled sleep. Time spent wondering, drinking coffee, eating because maybe that will momentarily quell the churning in my gut.

I watch passenger trains go places, riding the life support that is Amtrak. I dream I’m on a train headed to where there are no politicians or thieves or plague. I imagine a dream domain like the Sixties but without LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, or Charles Manson. It’s my sodding dream, after all.

But I need to sleep, beside a lover, who cares not a whit for television or pandemic or politics. I yearn for a lover without reservation or second thoughts, who appreciates the magic of menopause, and the luxurious necessity of lube.

I don’t want to have sell her on fucking. She will want the product as much as I need it. Maybe sanity will fill the space that tears now fill.