Midmorning at the No Place Else Bar

Midmorning at the No Place Else Bar



Bloody Marys stain
the morning sky,
the celery stalk of land
more loose strings
than soil
but he can't hardly see
beyond the blur of last night's
revels and devils
anyway, so it hardly matters
that all the ice
has melted and the glass
was dirty to begin with.

Freshly pressed and dressed,
wearing a floppy straw hat
with pink ribbons trailing
atop over-permed curls
frizzed beyond perfection,
she delicately sips a mimosa,
never realizing
that what she needs
won't be found in the bowl-sized crystal
with plumeria floating in it.

In the corner, the only table
where you can smoke
is scrunched close
with instant friends for life
sharing chairs, doctored coffee, and smokes:
three to a match
because the book is almost empty,
no one has a lighter, and the barman
has already collected the pale, pink
conch shell candles.

Behind the freshly polished and
once again gleaming bar,
the tender
keeps his eye and heart peeled
because it is half nine
and he hopes
it is his lucky day.
Someone has to have one
and it is his turn, isn't it?

In the back, the cook preps the grill
for another day's
rites of passage
of mahimahi merriment,
and bar burgers good enough
to make a medic give up the ghost
and run screaming
for a table because, why not?
You only live once.

Attitudes and life dreams share
the pretzel bowl. Yesterday's
dreams are feeding the cats
that hang 'round the trashcan"
good garbage means good eats:
they've learned, as others never will,
not to be picky, take what you can,
and hope for the best.

The young couple drifts in,
bleary-eyed after a twenty-two-hour day
of travel flying from Baltimore after the wedding.
She's thinking they should have spent the night
somewhere first, like her mother had suggested.
Her feet hurt from the miles
of hurry-up-hon-airport-sprints
She's so tired and it'd be awful
if she fell asleep, slept through
losing her virginity.

He's thinking she was worth the wait but
that her mother was right (for once) and
they should have spent the night somewhere
before the marathon to get to Maui.
Though it had never happened to him
before, he didn't figure falling asleep
on his bride would be a great beginning.
Stifling a yawn, he sleepily looks
at his new wife. Then grins. Suggests a swim
to wake them both up.

Jasper sits in his usual spot on the side,
nursing his third mai tai while scribbling away
on the next to last page of his notebook.
Today's his last day of vacation and he'd swore
he'd finally finish the book. A vacation spent
missing out on all he'd always wanted
to see and do. Calls home, knowing it is later there.
I'm a page away from the end, hon.
Care to join me? We deserve to celebrate!
Unknowing she replies, that there's
no place else she rather be.

Barely old enough to drink,
barely contained in her swimsuit
and sarong, she contemplates
her Sex-on-the-Beach
running a long, fuchsia fingernail
around and around the rim. She looks up,
through sandy-colored and artfully mussed bangs
to smile at the man joining her.
I was wondering, she muses, pointing a nail
out towards the ocean waves kissing the sand.

What time is the whale show?
Doesn't have a brain in her pretty little head,
he thinks, but who needs brains?
We'll go out on a boat to see them, sweetheart.
Out, like, you know, there? Again pointing.
He nods, orders a Bikini Blond beer, draft.
Oh, she ponders. They won't jump
on the boat will they?
He thinks of the small motorized raft,
reassures, sweet man that he is.



The midmorning crowd shuffles off
to do what they do
realizing there was someplace else
they need to, want to, have to be.
Lackadaisical waves,
sandy dollars scattered on the tables,
tipping their way towards the door.
Next high tide, or rainshower
they'd wash back in
because there really was No Place Else
they'd rather be.