To dine at a corner table, long nights

Of blues and poetry stringing together

Speaks of loneliness.

But yet, as you sit there with your jokes

And your smile, a word whispers, lonely,

The line in your shoulders

The Atlases effort that it is, to live,

To survive, but survive we do.

You can be alone and not lonely,

But dear, tell me,

Can you be lonely, yet not alone?