triton the magnificent

the sexy young man has spent the
day with his friends.  they are
all inside now, and he is
out here in his own back yard,
all alone. it is a hot summer evening.
now, while he's out here in
his back yard,
his friends are inside his house,
drinking beer and watching television.
and, for this moment,
he's here, alone in the back yard,
drinking beer from a
sweaty brown bottle.
he's felt lonely before,
but nothing like this,
as the evening falls,
and
the first goddamn star
peeks out like
a silver button,
on a lost coat,
that he wore in
the winter,
on the coldest
day of them all.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem "triton the magnificent" also appears in my book Be Kind to Strangers, published by BareBackPress in 2015. And "triton the magnificent" first appeared in Chiron Review, Issue 97, Autumn 2014.)