I used to think there was loneliness

in the fabric of the American soul;

    a matter of great distances,
    an aspect of being scattered

across boxes of drywall and vinyl siding,

being conveyed in velvet-steel cages—
    I felt there were traces of solitude

so I read Travels with Charley to see

what Steinbeck discovered, on the road.   
Aloneness, then, was a presupposition:

reared at a distance, without siblings,

counting migrant friends on thumbs.
When someone learns I’m an only child,

their face flickers like a smiling flipbook,

    depicting: “that explains a few things.”
    I figured they caught a glimpse

of this far-off mark on my skin

    like a long, straight scratch on the moon. 
“I want to be your one and only,” I croon

once again, to a faceless every-mannequin

    who too remarks: “that explains a few things.”
Somehow I began to think

I would be repaid for it all,

as if I held some holy IOU.
Reading Travels with Charley back then,

huddled aside, isolated, telling nobody—

    something essential had been jumbled.
Yet, Steinbeck: he was rarely alone

on his journey, sharing each meal,

coupling words to unsaid feelings.
A red sun sets over the Atlantic

saying, pain knows no nation

                    and closeness is fleeting. 
Tony makes me ravioli. I mumble—

     “Something in here is broken.”
But Tony knew. He is broken too.

    Long, straight scratches on the moon—
astronomers call them lineae.

I’m just glad they have a name.