The Paris Review

Sometimes love’s vagrancy (whatever you call it)
overwhelms all but the most robust subscribers,
and, dishonest as it may sound, the whole cramped enterprise
is given only a few minutes to clear out of town.

We were touchy that year, all year, 
at least until the old lady died. Perhaps a singularity
enraptured you, caused the sell-off
and the false positive. Compare your notes 

with the sample addresses, the ones 
the boss started to give, but then just couldn’t.
Outside the metropolis
you hardly find any restaurants worth eating in. Yet

the places are always full. Little families, conversation groups, 
a sense of the fell and distracted nature of humankind,
the displaced circular reasoning one gets into after a gambling
 loss,
these show up, disperse among the tables

and fade into the background. 
It appears we'll be here just long enough. For whatever
the thing is that knows no human reason to have its say. Or
 something
other, she explained, and passed the biscuits around.