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When Will These Three

by Joseph Mills

In the hotel bar, three women sip wine,
each tailored, coiffed, and manicured,
each clearly in an on-going relationship
with a dentist. They may be perfectly nice,
but suddenly I want to be drinking beer
from a red plastic cup, standing by a keg,
and listening to Mary and Julie and Laura
explain what a dumb ass I am for something
I’ve said or done recently, all of us lit
by more than the pallets burning nearby,
maybe by youth, maybe hope, or maybe,
although I didn’t recognize it then, by love
that didn’t involve scrabbling in a back seat.
It’s an easy fortune to tell. There are people
in your past who one day you will long for
with such an intensity that it will make
bartenders ask if you’re okay and women
become concerned enough about you
to move their glasses to a different table.


 

Joseph Mills photoA faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills holds an endowed chair, the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities.  He has published five collections of poetry with Press 53, including one on wine called Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers. More information about his work is available at www.josephrobertmills.com and he blogs somewhat regularly at www.josephrobertmills.blogspot.com.

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