Dark Rum & Tonic

Sometimes what you need is a road

house, blast of laughter and warm air pouring

out the door, where the waitresses know

your name but the customers don't, shrill

on the third martini or fifth Blue Ribbon,

steaks searing on a huge propane-fired grill.

Two birthday parties in full swing—

mylar balloons leashed to a chair-back slowly

turning—tonight you're a few years shy

the median age, at your back-wall table drinking

iced tea because you don't spend time with

the person you turn into after a frosted glass:

chardonnay, dark rum & tonic, you remember

her well, that girl, that woman, with great

compassion: her loneliness behind the amber

liquid disappeared, or seemed to, she got funny

and affectionate, softer, sexually daring but

not a femme fatale, always more honey

than darling, her courage long-gone by morning,

that terrible waking into a stranger's sheets.

You don't miss any of it. Headaches, longing

that's miles easier to bear when sober,

wishing a friend would come along and love you,

even though you're just getting older.

Some nights you need a road house, boisterous

laughter and warm air pouring through open

doors, the kind of place where your choice

is simple: well-done, bloody, or medium rare,

and no one gives a shit that you're by yourself,

writing in a notebook. Nobody turns to stare.