Published by Coffee Press Journal, January/February, 2006; copyright to J. Donald Coonrod. This is a romantic fantasy I like more than I can easily explain.

Songs down low,
groan, a double bass
plays corner politics
with strings and bow;
its musical words wink
at something maybe

I don’t know—
I just play here,
a soul disarticulated,
flailing over a boring
script until you come along,
doe eyed, blinking touch
as smooth as palmolive--
salvation setting in, maybe.

But when you leave so hurriedly,
are gone so soon, life seems
impossible--nothing holds,

yet your ghost is beautiful,
white wraps slipping off
as you pass silently
under my door.