28 Nov The Bartender’s Moon, By Daniel Green
The bartender starts work now.
He doesn’t drive. He walks.
I guide:
a vanilla glow
peeking at
winter’s chalk drawings.
He goes in through the front door.
I go in through the window.
The bartender’s lips are dry.
He fills craters with liquid.
Warm in the stomach.
Water on the moon.
Drops sift through space,
down our cheeks,
like whiskey in a barfly’s glass.
A man cries:
“Tell the bartender not to drive tonight!”
But he never learned how.
And I say:
Bartender, oh Bartender:
close for the night. I am shy.
That whiskey slips down,
that barfly leaves.
The bartender is stuck staring at keys.
Now we are alone.
I try to wrap him in my silver wings,
but he puts on a leather coat.
He leaves the bar. He looks to the sky.
We are both weeping
and don’t know why.