Neighborhood Bar

They pour a good beer there.
They have a good whisky.
They have low lights and highlights,
a big screen, small talk, regard for their patrons.
People go to the neighborhood bar
to plot revolution in the back booth.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to scheme for sex or connection.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to see themselves reflected.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to seek a knight or heroine.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to be with their people.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to avoid the other people.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to drink alone, to drink in pairs, to drink.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to wonder why they go to the neighborhood bar.
Nothing happens there that hasn’t happened
the night before the night before the night before.
So people go to the neighborhood bar
to hope for a different night or the same night
to happen for the first time or the last time
or this time once only or every time
at the neighborhood bar — a safe world
behind the neon sign and the butt bucket
full of sand and spit and remnants
outside the dark, kick-scarred door.
They pour a good beer there.
They have good whisky, clean glasses,
and nobody bothers you if you want to sit
and drink until closing, come back when it opens,
live there more or less until you don’t,
and when someone asks where you are
there’s a shrug and maybe soon enough
a memorial plaque, THIS STOOL RESERVED
FOR “YOUR NAME HERE”
goes on the bar rail
and after a week no one notices,
it gets busy, new people need a place —
go ahead and sit,
it’s a neighborhood bar,
people come and go.
Get you something? What you having?