Colorado Road Trip

We were losing ourselves in the mountains of Colorado, racing along the winding roads in our black Toyota.  The snow-capped peaks wore the clouds like halos and seemed to change form as we wrapped around them.  The tufts of snow tucked away on the hills injected the spring air with an icy chill that enlivened our senses and got our blood pumping once again after a sleepy, Midwestern winter. The Limber Pines showed deep and green with their heavy branches brushing against the soft tips of the new grass.  The fuzzy-antlered elk fed on wild flowers next to a restaurant’s roadside, Conestoga billboard, and we slowed our pace

arms out the window

our hands making tall wavelengths

in the Aspen air

***Title YTBD. Enjoy...

Pin, a name which the young man had unintentionally given himself, awoke exactly two minutes before his 6 a.m. alarm sounded only to look down and find his usually pristine white sheets muddied with red clay from his baseball cleats. His belly button was sore, but the sweet song still whispered in his ears. And the electricity he felt when she gazed at him across the candlelight still tickled his fingertips. He thought about Toaster; he thought about Amelia; A single tear formed as he thought of Marigold. Pin was careful to remove his shoes and calculatingly throw them onto his kitchen's tiled floor before alighting his twin bed and heading for the shower where he would once again make his transformation.

Mr. Pinneford stared into his bathroom mirror while being soothed by the buzzing of a halogen light. He tried to count his pores before carefully plucking each gray sprout from his head of black hair and placing them in a neat row onto the white sink where they would vanish. He would contemplate not brushing his teeth today, but as always, proceeded to brush and floss and feel utterly content afterward as a result of following through with this simple hygienic task. Mr. Pinneford bared his teeth with an empty smile and headed for the bedroom closet to get dressed for the day. He reached for a single pair of black leather shoes that sat neatly to the left of a large cluster of repurposed footwear. Hiking boots, climbing shoes, slippers, sneakers, flip-flops, rain boots: they had all served their purpose at one time or another but would not be needed today. He buttoned his heavily starched shirt and tucked it into his pleated black pants before clasping his belt and choosing a tie. His place of employment had done away with the formality of neckties, but Mr. Pinneford preferred them, and the simple pleasure he found in choosing which one to wear was a high point of his day.

Upon Waking

My chin presses against his chest.
I look up to his eyes knowing
that when I can't sleep in his bed
his shirt will have to do.
His sweaty palms like a slug
slide from my jaw line to my collarbone
when he holds me like I'll break
and I am pale as porcelain.
His shower smell is dandruff shampoo
a sprig of rosemary
or the color green.
For a moment
I pretend we're perfect strangers
so he can make a good first impression
by recklessly tossing out song lyrics
that he prays I'll recognize.
I swallow his words, choking them down.
They float in a sea of me
crumpled into a swing-top, blue bottle
where I keep secrets
my imagination
last kisses
and repressed memories of his morning breath.

Snuffy

Sometimes I think about my dead grandfather.
I don't remember him well
but I do know that his eyes were the color of steel
and that he looked hollow the night before he died.
Now I wonder if he sees me from the grave
when I back-date my checks
or lie to sweet boys.
My grandmother made him Catholic
so sometimes he and I nod off together in church
and take too much wine
before we sign and grin like the oldest of children
as we walk back to the pew.
I wonder if my sister wonders about him.
They didn't know each other
but I think he sees her trying to put on makeup.
And I think he sits with my grandmother
when she remembers what it was like to dance.

A Glass

A culmination of Brazilian suns sits in her glass
as ice swirls in a whirlpool of stirs,
seeping out the sides
and melting into a puddle
that could flood a thousand nights
or stain the sleeves of the careless.
Glass clinks like a hundred bangles dangling
at the end of her slender wrist.
She wears the whiskey to match her shoes.


Its glow is as orange as her grandmother's ottoman
or a West Coast see-through tan
and lights the tip of her nose
sip after sip. . .
And the drink smells of the attic
where she was once a damsel
and is rescued only by last call.

The taste makes her cringe like
an old sailor getting a fresh tattoo.
She slams the glass onto the ancient, wooden tables
"Checkmate."
And the black and white tiles swallow her
as she sinks to the ground
when the lights turn up.

A Continuation

When my slippers have seen the snowy streets of Chicago, I'll know that I can have an attraction based on chance meetings and sweet coincidences. Until then, I'll have to come to grips with my obscure being and lack of grace.

I wandered into Stagger one night. I firmly believed that a Whiskey on the Rocks would compensate for the night I had already had. The parking lot of the bar seemed empty, but I spotted my acquaintances through the frosted windows before making my way through the wooden doors. The barkeep was decked out in spandex from his earlier bike ride and seated atop his bar stool as if it were an ivory throne. After confirming my age, I turned the corner wherein I found both friends and enemy sipping cocktails as the birthday girl floated around from click to click, laughing louder than she knew she was.

On slow nights there are no bands to replace the awkward silences, thus the "Lament in a Bar":

She said that she was like an amputee—
her love cut from her body, but she still felt
the ghost pains of a limb
that no longer felt her.
Displaced again—
three moves in six months.
One of a lifetime
and one lasting seconds
compared to eons of love's evolution

The noxious fumes of her perfume nearly choked her—
she poured it down the drain
and it smelled like him.
A royal needle-in-the-hay moment in the bathroom—
only without the attempted suicide
while she watched clumps of hair
begin to fill the sink.
She couldn't remember when she went
but she was gone and tried
to find herself in her buzzing, florescent
light bulb eyes.
She never sees anything coming.

Mistaken Gin and Tonic—
it was a Vodka Gimlet,
but the coloring must have been the same.
She hears that song on an open mic night,
and now she feels how she should
before she orders another drink.
“It comes in threes,”
a friend assures her.

Beatnik snaps filled the bar, and a hipster girl who was seated in the corner was hoping that the boy with the too-long hair had overlooked the hole in her fishnets as she adjusted her boots. I started to over-analyze the shampoo.

One day he had come home with an economy-sized bottle of the shampoo that I regularly used. I initially thought, "How sweet of him to notice." Then, I started thinking about the large black bottle. A fleeting thought of his over-compensating for something ran past me. At that moment I knew that the shampoo would outlast us. The guilt he felt for his misdeeds allowed him to at least send me on my way packing; the shampoo lasted a full month longer than we did. I soon invested in another of the same size.

Once I was over it, I played to the crowd and smiled to my replacement. She offered me a light, and I ashed in her purse. She never noticed my glances as she slyly checked to make sure that her cleavage was centered. I moved on.

Days later a sweet boy beckoned me through the awkward doors of Stagger once again. I clamored through the crowd, kissing cheeks and giving empty embraces as I looked over their heads for the one I had come for. I finally found him at the tail-end of the bar, sipping on beer and noticing my every interaction as he grinned at my humorings. He thought he had me pegged. He wasn't the one, but it felt good to believe that he was until the bar turned up the lights.

The Chronicles of Stagger: The Beginning

I walked into the bar like I do almost every night when I’m coaxed by a coworker or a sweet boy into going out. The doors of The Stag are old and wooden. They’re smooth and shiny and impossible to pass through without looking awkward to someone who’s not accustomed to people squeezing between two tiny doors that are too stubborn to open all of the way. The doorman usually waves me in, and I get a nod from the bartender, Tim. I found out just recently that he hasn’t shaved his bushy red beard in twenty-seven years with the exception of a charity event when he shaved it to raise money. There are shuffle board players trying to squeeze past each other in order to get to the end of the table where they are sandwiched between the game and a protruding beer sign that faces the street. I never get nervous if the friends I’m supposed to meet aren’t there when I arrive because there are people who are like fixtures at the bar. There are always the cooks from the dinner rush who sit closest to the darkened kitchen. There are the hipsters who walk Main Street and come into Stag for the Black and Tans and a game of darts. There’s always the boy hoping that I might show up, and there are always the musicians, ready at any moment to hop on stage to fill in the gaps for a jam session.

Now, the bar itself is decades old and the history of its construction, destruction, and restoration can be found on the back of their menus. The barstools are old and clunky, but they still spin smoothly despite the wobble in the legs. It’s awkward to sit on the stools, facing the bartenders because your knees knock up against the front unless you’re able to spread you legs wide enough to accommodate. There are multi-colored mints and boxes of matches for everyone who wants fresh breath after they smoke. Old trinkets and pictures decorate the register, and a countdown to St. Patty’s day is always posted somewhere. If it’s not, just ask the bartender, and they’ll let you know.

Though you can find Tim bartending almost every night of the week, there are others. Patty, the day bartender, is in her sixties as far as I can tell and has shaggy short hair with a rat tail that hangs down her back. She’s an avid White Sox fan, but she’ll give the Cardinals their dues any day. She is drinking Jameson by noon and serves anyone in the vicinity of the bar with a good sense of humor the same drink after they’ve finished their Bloody Marys. Brad is another night bartender. He stands about 6’6” and is usually sporting braided pigtails and cut-off jean shorts. He has a good sense of humor with a smile to match, and you can find him there with his hair down on the nights that he’s not working. Janet is the cute bartender that all the boys flirt with and pray that they can take home, but she’s a good girl and can drink them all under the table. There are a few others, like the girl who seems bitter about everything and angry to have to pour you a drink, and there’s the other guy who can stack up to fifteen rocks glasses on top of each other and carry them around the bar without breaking a sweat.

The college kids who have moved here from out of town sometimes don’t understand the beat of Stagger. Everyone from town knows that you go there to have a good time, listen to some good tunes, trade small stories, and drink. You don’t fight, you don’t get too loud, you don’t wave down a bartender, and you don’t get sloppy. There are other places in town for that.