I slow-dance most nights in front of oblong windows, streetlights peeking in through half-opened blinds, caressing my naked body. Dreamlike, but this was never my dream.

alone

I can’t imagine anyone would want to watch this body or these uneven tai chi movements. Private dancer? More like a wounded bird in a once-gilded cage.

deep purple lesions
the color of disco pants

Cage? Or is this another wall? I’ve built so many, brick by brick over the years. I eke out a sorry shuffle in the shadows, one foot back, another. There is no forward.

drinking up the night 
never imagining I’d be 
one of those sad young men 

 

—Long-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #4

 

Publisher’s Note:

I was drawn to this wistful lamentation in part because it flashed me back to my own memories of the Seventies—and one of my favorite songs by Roberta Flack, “Ballad of the Sad Young Men”. Originally written for the 1959 off-Broadway musical The Nervous Set, with lyrics by Fran Landesman and music by Tommy Wolf, the song depicts young men sitting alone in bars, “drinking up the night and trying not to drown.” As a jazz standard, it’s been recorded by several artists, including Roberta Flack on her debut album First Take (1969). Details at Wikipedia (link retrieved on 5 September 2026):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_Sad_Young_Men

Scott Wiggerman

Albuquerque poet and artist Scott Wiggerman is the author of four books of poetry, including his newest: a collection inspired by lines and themes of Emily Dickinson, Beginning and Ending with Emily: Ghazals & Golden Shovels (Casa Urraca Press, March 2026). Wiggerman is the co-organizer of the annual Albuquerque Poets’ Picnic at the Open Space Visitor Center, as well as co-editor for two decades at Dos Gatos Press. The latter has produced numerous books of Southwestern U.S. poetry, including the most recent, Notes of Light and Dark: Southwestern Aubades and Nocturnes (The Southwestern United States, Number Six), and the best-selling two-volume series Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Why Some American Adolescents Only Succeed at Suicide, haibun story by Scott Wiggerman in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 32, June 2026)

⚡ Voices From Each Side of a Triangle, braided cheribun story by Scott Wiggerman, short-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Third Cheribun Challenge (Issue 29, August 2025)

⚡ Brothers by Blood, braided cheribun by Wiggerman, short-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Second Cheribun Challenge (Issue 24, August 2024)

⚡ The Things I Do for Porn, braided cheribun by Wiggerman, long-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Second Cheribun Challenge (Issue 25, September 2024)

⚡ Wiggerman’s introduction to his curated collection of haiku on the theme of the LGBTQIA+ experience, for National Poetry Month: Haiku of the Day, April 2023; scroll down a bit to access the slide show for April.

⚡ The Story of Fire, haibun by Wiggerman in Issue 16 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (January 2023)