Member-only story
Hawaii Blue
A Poem About Loneliness
Karen steps off the bus and stands on the sidewalk in the growing dark
She’s hoping to see something different, but Kansas Avenue looks the same as always — a landing strip of road, flanked on both sides by drab three-story apartment blocks — all with names not fitting for this hick town Karen calls home
Names like Casa Linda and Hampton Court, and in the case of her apartment block, The Mauna Loa
Distinctly Hawaiian
But there is no active volcano here, nor is there a white sand beach where she might enjoy a tropical drink served with a paper umbrella
But the Mauna Loa does have a pink plastic palm tree in the lobby and a hula dancer (with a wandering eye) painted on the wall near the elevator — a white orchid held aggressively in her teeth
Karen remembers how two years ago, someone drew a dick over the orchid with a black Sharpie, and Mr Verdicchio, the manager, never bothered to paint over it.
Karen walks into the lobby that smells of fried onions and stale cigarette smoke and retrieves her mail from the row of metal boxes by the palm tree: a phone bill, a letter from her sister in Sudbury, and a flyer from Luigi’s Pizzeria advertising a two-for-one special on “The Aloha,” aka Ham and Pineapple
