Tavern

Back bar light drapes the dusty glass spirits in gold

I wish I were an imposter here, but I’m welcome

Escape is just a punchline

Somewhere outside is the dream

Barking from the brick yards

Trumpeting in the taxi horns

But no dreamers here

Only the shredded at the hands of life’s hurricane

The man beside me is mumbling about his son’s suicide

That it made his wife’s mind drift over the horizon

The bartender just gashed her knuckle

She soaks blood through the bar cloth

There’s a redheaded woman at the far corner of the bar

She is beautiful and dead at the same time

This cold gin warms my guts like sunlight to the bare rocks

I wonder if it matters to make it out alive