She's got the loneliness of the world
tattooed upon her heart
like the lyrics of a song.

She stays up and drinks
until the ghosts forget
why they were angry
and drift back
into the soft of the void.

Hope and despair;
two faces
among countless faces
she's lost to the years.

She opens a bottle and listens

to the noise of the city -
the laughter and sirens,
makings of ill-conceived deals,
beginnings and endings of sad affairs;

the music of it more honest
than any lover she'll ever know.

WILLIAM TAYLOR JR. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award. From the Essential Handbook on Making it to the Next Whatever is his latest collection of poetry.