Solo

You drove me home

hundreds of miles

from Nashville

to New York

Neil Diamond

sang us all the way

up those Interstates

northward

past Virginia,

West Virginia,

Ohio and Pennsylvania.

He croons as we 

veer out of Tennessee,

“I’m a believer”.

My ring finger

is strangely barren.

Mid-morning,

“Solitary Man”

summons teary visions

of my rejected 

husband, alone now,

in the new house.

“I am, I said”

punches in with 

a minor key

after lunch. 
I, too, am scarily solitary –

by choice

and sad.

Though I don’t 

know it yet,

soon, “Sweet Caroline”

will find me dancing

in new arms, 

a new life.

Did I thank you enough?

                                -Jeanette Willert