The Restoration
We drank coffee and got ready,
listened to 93.3 during our commute
to take our mind off how
every day we die on tv. Every day
down the block, kids in surgical masks
spraypaint Magneto was Right on street signs
and new storefronts waiting to redeem
spa resort passes and avocado toast dreams
until they, too, are forced out of business.
Or not. People can surprise you
like beating cancer or criminal charges,
the 2016 election, the high cost
of middle shelf liquor with a decent view.
If you want to succeed, let them see you
coming, our mothers once said before asking
if we wanted the switch or the belt.
But a whooping beats sitting
at the rooftop bar looking over the steepled skyline
and feeling the pang of worlds we’d rather be,
with two empty seats right beside us
that stay empty for the next two hours
surrounded by people drinking & eating
standing up—the wind threatening
to blow their hats off their sunburned heads.
Somewhere right now
there are two people looking for those seats.
We keep hoping they’ll find them—
find us. Let’s have another drink,
watch the muted news above
a row of decent bourbon,
wait to hear, to see
if they make it to us or turn up on tv.
Copyright © 2019 by Gary Jackson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 9, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I was waiting for a friend at a rooftop bar one afternoon and realized no one was seated next to me, despite the place being standing room only. I pulled out my notebook and drafted this poem on the spot (a rarity for me) until my friend arrived, and we left soon after. This particular bar adorns the top of a swanky hotel called The Restoration, which is such a perfect name for a hotel in Charleston.”
—Gary Jackson