HAPPY HOUR AT ANTHONY'S


She's next to you, one stool away, right now in the bar's neon glow. Beak-like
nose & pockmarked face but sexy anyway. Cigarettes & Michelob, she turns &
looks you up & down then turns away again. And you've got nothing to say.
Nothing, even when her drunken eyes meet yours. No hunger. No words. Side by
side you drink alone, separate in a shared space, lost in parallel silences.

She rubs her forehead, picks her face, pulls something from the corner of her
eye, balls it between forefinger & thumb, examines it briefly then flicks it
away. She seems tired, weary, sick of whatever it is that's happened. You drum
your fingers to somebody else's music on the jukebox. She motions for another
beer. You wait two minutes then do the same.

She swivels on her stool, stretches, massages the back of her neck. You'd help
with that but she'd have to ask. She doesn't & that's fine too. Whatever will
be will be.

One more draft. Spend what's on the bar. The change is the tip. Don't break
the last five in your wallet. She orders a six-pack. Smokes a last lazy
cigarette. Swallows what's left in her glass & leaves a dollar for the barmaid
who she thanks with a wave as she spins & dismounts. What passes between you
is barely a glance. Shadows never touching in the same dark room. You watch
her grow smaller in the mirror as she makes her exit, the six-pack brown
bagged in the crook of arm, her cheap silver purse slung across her sharp-
boned shoulder, something sad & bird-like in her stride. And then she's gone
the way she came.

You catch the end of the six o'clock news, wish you had a cigarette, swirl
your now defrosted mug then drain it. You turn & wave to no one, pause at the
door & switch to sunglasses, then you're gone the way you came. Grateful for
the nothing of it all.






BACKYARD BENEDICTION


Folded in sheets
of blue sky breeze

staked to this patch
of brown dirt

as a buddha-breasted robin
sings a so long sundown song

I light this pipe
& settle into shadows.



MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE


Backyard birds 
& Rolling Rock

a powdered sky
a telephone

& you somewhere else 
in this day, in this world

now caught in the eye
of this poem.

This page hosted by Get your ownFree Home Page