Fawn Under Glass,
As seen in Barr’s Bar, Willard, WI, 2008
Maybe inside your collapsed body,
maybe under your folded legs,
you hold the secret to being still
and staying alive. Symbol of sanctity
amid cheese fries. What other place
could feel more like heaven? I am reminded
by the jukebox that time itself
is tickin’, that all we can do is dance,
that I’m living on a prayer. Really,
I’m on a bar stool, living on Pabst.
Swiveling a little, thinking about the meat raffle
in October, and wondering
if the owner, confined to a wheelchair
is really named “Barr,” if that’s a real name,
and if so: wouldn’t that confine a person
to certain career choices?
We are all confined to something,
I suppose, and if only we imagined glass on all sides,
we might feel less afraid of leaving the world.
As if death could be any lonelier than a rural bar,
where I, a strange girl, have stumbled upon
the unborn, the unholy, the deeply dead,
only to find some comfort
in checkered flooring, unadorned tables,
red faces moored to televisions,
although no one is keeping score.
Tenaya Darlington lives and teaches in Philadelphia. She is the author of a poetry collection, Madame Deluxe (Coffee House, 2000), and a novel, Maybe Baby (Little, Brown, 2004). Her forthcoming book (May, 2013) is a guide to tasting cheese. She blogs at MadameFromageBlog.com.
Maybe inside your collapsed body,
maybe under your folded legs,
you hold the secret to being still
and staying alive. Symbol of sanctity
amid cheese fries. What other place
could feel more like heaven? I am reminded
by the jukebox that time itself
is tickin’, that all we can do is dance,
that I’m living on a prayer. Really,
I’m on a bar stool, living on Pabst.
Swiveling a little, thinking about the meat raffle
in October, and wondering
if the owner, confined to a wheelchair
is really named “Barr,” if that’s a real name,
and if so: wouldn’t that confine a person
to certain career choices?
We are all confined to something,
I suppose, and if only we imagined glass on all sides,
we might feel less afraid of leaving the world.
As if death could be any lonelier than a rural bar,
where I, a strange girl, have stumbled upon
the unborn, the unholy, the deeply dead,
only to find some comfort
in checkered flooring, unadorned tables,
red faces moored to televisions,
although no one is keeping score.
Tenaya Darlington lives and teaches in Philadelphia. She is the author of a poetry collection, Madame Deluxe (Coffee House, 2000), and a novel, Maybe Baby (Little, Brown, 2004). Her forthcoming book (May, 2013) is a guide to tasting cheese. She blogs at MadameFromageBlog.com.