Joan met Robert on a rainy day in October,

Robert was drunk, he came staggering out of a bar and fell down between two parked cars.

Joan took him home, and he stayed.

He was 22, and she was 29.

She let him sleep in a nest of blankets in the living room

And the next day she found him going through the books and records

She had collected in her lifetime.

They became lovers

Rolling together in the long nights.

The universe is naturally lonely,

But sometimes things connect and join

And explode

And Joan and Robert connected.

For the first time, they weren’t alone.

But Robert continued to drink and when he didn’t come home

Joan would have to search the streets to find him

And sometimes she found him and sometimes she didn’t.

It was too much.

So when she asked him to stop coming to see her,

Robert left. She cried.

Robert stood by an open window in a cheap room he took

And wondered if he’d always be young and lucky.