Looking for You, Barbara

Ted Kooser (b. 1939)

I have been out looking for you,
Barbara, and as I drove around,
the steering wheel turned through my hands
like a clock. The moon
rolled over the rooftops and was gone.

I was dead tired; in my arms
they were rolling the tires inside;
in my legs they were locking the pumps.
Yet what was in me for you
flapped as red in my veins
as banners strung over a car lot.

Then I came home and got drunk.
Where are you? 2 A.M.
is full of slim manikins
waving their furs from black windows.

2008: The Listeners by Walter De La Mare

My bed goes once more around the block,
and my heart keeps on honking its horn.