Steve Nolan Says It's the Love Life, the Love Life, the Love Life

David Brooks claims
that the great loneliness began
with smartphones but I blame
dishwashers because after big dinners
the aunts would gather
to scrape, wash, dry,
and put away leftovers
and even on school nights
the youngest girl dried
while an older washed
and there was quarreling, yes,
the opposite of loneliness.

In those days men drove
and when there were four in a car
the two women sat in the back
and what I’m saying is
men and women didn’t expect
so much of each other not like now
when a soldier sits on a toilet
for four hours with the business end
of a rifle in his mouth
because his woman isn’t his after all
until another man persuades him
there are other fish in the sea
and gently takes the weapon away.