growing old

Would she see me
If I came back
in a jacket and tie?
Would she know why
I said what I did?
That she was
a white lilly
floating down a dark black river,
winding through
heavy springtime woods?

I walk through Hollywood
most nights,
and watch so many
big blue-green eyes turn up,
then look away.
So many plump, parted lips
talking into the nighttime sky
and none of them are hers.

They are all incredibly sad,
sparkling now
with youthful ignorance,
but I can see them
fading away into nothingness,
without so much as
a flicker of light or fight,
like a drugstore camera that didn't flash.

So incredibly sad!
A sprawling white lilly
floating down a dark black river
and fading away
behind heavy clouds
falling under the weight
of their own loneliness
closer and closer to the ground.