I reached up into the top of the closet and took out a pair of blue panties and showed them to her and asked "are these yours?" and she looked and said, "no, those belong to a dog." she left after that and I haven't seen her since. she's not at her place. I keep going there, leaving notes stuck into the door. I go back and the notes are still there. I take the Maltese cross cut it down from my car mirror, tie it to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave a book of poems. when I go back the next night everything is still there. I keep searching the streets for that blood-wine battleship she drives with a weak battery, and the doors hanging from broken hinges. I drive around the streets an inch away from weeping, ashamed of my sentimentality and possible love. a confused old man driving in the rain wondering where the good luck went. Charles Bukowski