Matinee

The lobby was bright with the smell of the corn,

but I’m here in Row F, feeling weathered and worn.

Wednesday at two is a hole in the week,

where nobody looks for the secrets you seek.

The house lights go down and the screen is a void,

the kind of deep silence that can’t be annoyed.

My boot finds a patch of some old, spilled sweet,

gluing my heel to the floor by the seat.

It’s the best kind of dark, before the ads start,

hiding the pieces of a middle-aged heart.