Mike's Bar andGrill
It was my home, that little corridor
of a bar on High Street. No sign, no phone,
no address. Split bus seats listed beside
Formica tables, stools sprung from mottled
tile like unstrung fence posts. Deep creases snaked
along the wooden bar; some fell into
names carved with keys or knives, others spread out
like rivers, like lifelines etched across palms.
There was silence in the ceaseless
undertow of voices, the snap
of Zippo lids, the click of Pabst
pull tabs--the ones I'd fling at Fran
while she glued down press-on nails
and dabbed tobacco from her lips.
No mirror backed the liquor shelf;
but sometimes I could see Willie
and me in the caves of the cooler's door.
The frosted metal undid our faces
like peeled hides tacked to an old barn
while Willie twirled his corduroy
vest's loose button and drank Kesslers
until his eyes were plum, shifting
like stones locked in a swift stream.
All year, a single strand of Christmas lights
framed the front window, winking at shoppers
and cars trapped in line; and we'd stare
past the window, waiting for anyone
to come in, followed by that blast of air,
cool and unused,embracing us like sleep.
I saw the man today
you might leave me for.
He stepped down
from a paving machine
that was blocking traffic on Route 23.
I was locked in a line of cars
and hulking tractor trailers;
he grabbed a red thermos,
gulped water that heaved
from the sides of his thin mouth
and doused a range of shoulders
that strained a green t-shirt.
He had the subtle muscle
that comes from work.
Just the lean strength that softens
to the pure comfort of something finished.
His blond hair was scooped
back from his forehead, held
in place with sweat. Smoke curled
around his brown boots; the tar
bubbled and rolled away
from his broad stance. He looked
up at the sky, seemed to think
simply, "The sky is blue. I am
thirsty." Glancing back at his work,
a taut ribbon stretching away
from my motionless car, he shifted
his weight. Bronze wheat bowed
behind him in a breeze that instantly
dried his brow, stripped pitch
flecks from his tight cheek.
His eyes were bluer than mine,
crystallized by the sun and held
there by the endless, hot asphalt;
not light like mine, like the fluorescence
that buzzes over my university desk
in the bookish dark, while I stare
and fret over impossible phrases.
I saw his hand cupped
under your shy jaw, his perfect
thumb wiping at your pale
freckles as if they were tears.
There were no questions
in his furrowed gaze; he said
without speaking: "My search
is over. Who needs poetry."
--Timothy Cheeseman
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