1084. AT CHUMLEY'S

AT CHUMLEY'S
Well anyway : when we used to sit.
Bobby Beddia and all the rest, sack-faced,
those two dogs, that shadowy smiley jukebox
tucked on the wall, the owner in the alleyway
watching the rest. Gone now gone all gone. Shit.
-
What's left for living is the leftover feel of
encumbrance and not much else. My feet in
your face, up on the table top where we forgot to
pay, your dog-faced wanderings and Mary Kay.
The Tupelo brothers with their toothpaste faces
and, all the while, the fire in the fireplace, the mantle
and the cases. All those old bookcovers upon the wall.
-
Where are they, now, that nothing's left?
The broken building that leans like mud, the
words we all spoke in fun, the serious girls
in the back, from Long Island, and the
ones who only knew firemen? I say it's
over. Now. And Bobby Beddia is dead again.
-
Shoot my brackish backwater down,
drink my slag-heap India Pale Ale
and drown me in the dregs. I just
no longer want to be at all.