She sought love … in bars along 7th Avenue, one by one, night after night.
Scanning faces, searching for a nuance she would recognize,
When it appeared. Accepting, declining; drinks, dances
invitations for sweaty, grappling encounters
that touched the body but never the soul …
She sought love … in glaring, sterile aisles in supermarkets, hands grasping
cold, steel handles, cart holding nothing, merely a prop, a reason
for being there at all. Slick pages in even slicker magazines
having promised the desperately-dateless a new, fertile
hunting ground.
She sought love … amid swirling, sudsy wash-loads, hum of machinery, acrid
stench of chlorine, clothes clean and clean and clean; washed, dried,
folded neatly, stacked in wicker baskets. Preppies, Yuppies
and long-haired, tattooed artist types. Another 'Promised Land'
of opportunity for those without.
She sought love … on a darkened street, yellow street lights, pools of
sanctuary against the void. Wandering with no purpose other
than a chance encounter. Sudden awareness, looming menace,
jerked from the sidewalk by arms, bands of steel; momentary
flash of moonlight on the knife-blade before the slash …
the whisper,
"I love you, Baby …"