The Pub
There’s a pub next door to my building.
It’s as far as I want to go
for social interaction. In fact I sometimes
even wish it was in the lobby –
a woman’s low-lit laughter streaming out,
old-time swing, sweeping you in,
and keeping the world
at bay for a bit longer.
But then I’d probably never get out at all.
It’s not quite next door, this pub. It’s a block away,
sometimes several blocks away, and I’m able to draw
on the energy of the people on the sidewalk,
the kind that makes you come alive
and want to talk aloud, hold a seminar
on how to read modern poetry, listen
to the applause of the audience afterwards,
comments from the people who invariably
look to ingratiate themselves
with the lecturer, coming up and introducing
themselves, telling short anecdotes
helping illuminate a point you’ve made
so you nod the kind of nod that says,
“Yes, you understand this,” and they smile
and want to buy you a drink, and you saunter back
to the pub where there’s just you now,
and the girl from the front row telling you again
that her boyfriend would never get this stuff,
and you and she decide to skip the pub altogether.
That kind of energy. And I’m glad then
that sometimes it’s several blocks.
.
