the young divorcee hunkers down
in front of a foaming water jet
while a brunette stranger
straddles him and kisses his
chapped champagne lips

“nice beard…” she says as
she picks a fragment of party mix
out of its depths

she breaks his heart by moving on
to the next random in this tame orgy

his face in the photograph
is waxen,
his cigarette drooping
from his teeth,
while the kids
embark on warm kisses
he sits in front of the
water jets listening
to David Bowie
singing “Life on Mars”
as New Year’s
fireworks explode along
the starry horizon

but in black and white,
he looks like a rumpled stranger
in a strange land

Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California, where he resides in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend and their one-eyed cat.  Recent work has appeared in Underground Voices, Gutter Eloquence Magazine, Crack the Spine and Pipe Dream.  Mr. Ridgeway’s chapbook Burn through Today is now available from Flutter Press.