It was an A/C generated winter in the apartment during the equatorial hot virus driven summer. I was thinking about the women who I thought I loved. All of the hers who, based on sometimes a single strand of hope, I announced my love. “I love you” (unspoken—but I don’t know for how long.) Never forever. A single strand of promise to be her Doug. Not to be her ex, Bill. To be my eyes, she said. You were all singers . . .a semi-pro, a pseudo-Irish troubadour, a wannabe musical diva. They were all unfulfilled to a person. “Did I lead you on to fill my space? Did you buy my show? Did we both hope for forever love?” I look at the picture-festooned walls of my latest apartment and remember the diva’s words. “It looks like you could move out in 20 minutes.” Sundown begins. The pandemic heat recedes just enough to sit outside with a glass of red and Oscar Peterson playing Gershwin. And I wonder if tomorrow will be ok living just with me.
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Jess Nadelman: Apprentice company manager on Broadway. Law student. Unsuccessful stand-up comic. Actor with never ending love of improvisation. Feature film location manager. Spouse pregnant; sea change. Executive search (headhunter). Various staff and executive roles in corporate financial services. Corporate marketing and strategy consultant. Father, grandfather, loyal friend. Began writing poetry in college because he hated Hallmark sympathy cards.
Lightwood 