longingly searching
for happiness in a stranger's eye
trying constantly
to find a gate, a door, some opening
in this wall of alone
enjoying fleetingly
the swift yet rewarding times of joy
remembering, perhaps regretting
moments of passion, of emotion
missing now, but oh so needed
hoping, sometimes dreaming
of possible future pleasures, future pains
and being hardly able to contain
my anticipation
July 1975
© J L M Conlin 1977