Category: Rituals

She had been christened Lucy
born during the years when TV viewers
did love Lucy.
She’d done a lot of things
but settled on being a barmaid
tall and tanned and lovely
not quite the girl from Ipanema – but almost.

Short on skirt
long on wit
she worked her way up from L.A. to Seattle
finding the perfect bar,
or maybe the bar found her.

Lola was what they called her
she wondered if most, or any, knew her real name
had been there for a few years by now
was going back after her southern sojourn.
She told us lots of stories – but this was the best.

In women’s restroom was a poster
a full-sized naked man
with a fig leaf
exactly where a fig leaf would be expected
one that could be lifted
the unredacted view rewarding, apparently
but,
if someone did
a light came on in the bar.

Whenever a new woman came in
the regulars would watch and wait
if she was there for the evening…. sooner or later.

After the earthquake
the machinery
and war zone scale demolition
growth reclaimed itself,
trees and landscape escaped suburban detention
morphing
more feral than park – less forbidding than wilderness
catching and scattering the light –
a lacework of sun, shadow and river
popular with walkers
and hometown tourists.

A city of two halves – it was
the east, rubble
the west – barely touched.

They stopped and asked
was I from around here
what was it like – then – and now.

Mid-50’s both
the rings on their fingers shining, untarnished.
The whole while we talked
arms encircled each other’s waist
fingers played occasional sonatas on hips
eyes locking and lingering.
When we separated
they walked hand-in-hand.

I watched them leave.
Second time love
how erasing
how absolving
how redeeming
the chance to return to the fork
and take the other.

He wasn’t the first,
Alistair had that distinction
or destiny.
Al – at high school, we thought him full of bullshit
too much exaggeration
too much hyperbole
too much self-aggrandisement
until dead at 17 : from too much heroin,
then
we reclassified fiction, non-fiction.

Once he was gone,
perhaps
we realised he’d never been innocent
or innocent
making
this time, feel like the first time.
Just 20, all of us – just left our teens
20 – seemed so much older than 19
even the really old school at uni
treated us less like kids now.

In the afternoon sunshine
we stood straight and tall
until
lowering our heads
in sync with the lowering coffin.
A sigh
moist eyes
no one wiped them
or risked trembling vocal cords.
We walked away in silence.