Strip Mall In Paradise
This martini bar looks like a Kubrick set.
“I’m sorry Dave, I can’t make you a Tequila Sunrise.”
The water’s out in in the men’s room.
To be honest, it’s out in the whole goddamn place.
The stage angel shouts our names into her microphone,
one by one, as we cross the threshold.
I’m waiting for a masked Tom Cruise to walk slowly
across the room, making too much eye contact.
If this is heaven, I’m glad I never took up drinking.
On the TV behind her head, a drag race.
This is the kind of place where they don’t shut off
the TVs during the show, in case Big Brother
needs to make an announcement. Oceania
has always been at war with Eastasia. Buy
a pocket catheter or a hearing aid named after
the Six Million Dollar Man.
Now she’s throat-singing French into the microphone
as the frat boys down their martinis, baseball caps
on backwards like it’s 20 years ago.
If it makes you feel any better, I scrawled this poem
on four small napkins with the bartender’s pen
because I left my notebook in the minivan.
And if that’s not the sexiest thing you’ve ever heard,
this is going to be a short night.
8 November 2012
Auburn, AL
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