UNTITLED ART by Anna Hardy
ODE TO THE JOYNT by Steve Merino
Behind me there’s a jukebox playing Motion
Sickness, pool balls scatter apart, a bottle
shatters at the bottom of a trash can beneath
the bar. It’s strange, the commotion of colliding
sounds; how everything suddenly feels crowded, but
I’ve come to understand congestion from rivers;
I’m most content hiding in the middle of a crowd.
There’s a group of regulars sitting by the window,
a pitcher of beer sweating between them & the one
in the Packers hat keeps looking, I swear,
into my past, trying to figure out if he’s seen me
before & maybe he has. I come here every time
I’m in Eau Claire. Maybe I remind him of a brother
who left one night & never returned or an old friend
forgotten to time. The bartender takes my order
& tells me their vision is slowly deteriorating.
I just nod & drink. Don’t tell them mine, too. Lately,
I’ve been hiding wasps in laughter & my eyes
are mirrors. Another round of whiskey as
the bartender wipes the inside of a glass, looks
at or beyond the door, confess they hate this place
which I both do & do not understand; I’m starting
to hate every place I go, but not the way these
bar stools wobble or how the stickers collage
the mini fridge under the taps. Loneliness
is a tricky thing. I can’t stop thinking
of all the hands that have touched this bar
& how those hands take traces of this place
with them when they go. Look, I should say,
a little over a year ago I drove my brother & all
his things to DC & recently I drove there again
this time to bring him home & of course
we talked politics & how our mother started smoking
again, but I didn’t ask if he was ok or what happened
& maybe there’s a sort of wall I constantly build
to keep people I love away. Now he’s back
in St. Paul & happy, but I’m still worried
about distance & what is lost in silence & I keep
thinking of this goddamn bar & all the things I have
& have not touched.
Steve Merino (he/him) is a poet from St. Paul, MN. His work can be in the Under Review, perhappened, and others. Full publications listed at https://linktr.ee/steve_merino. Follow him on twitter @steve_merino.
Anna Hardy is a 19 year old artist currently studying fashion at the Manchester School of Art. Her work primarily focuses on portraiture whilst having undertones of fashion to it. She hopes to continue doing her digital drawings to develop her skills and continue selling prints of her art.