Elegy at Jack’s Tavern by Bob Boulton

Only one drink and I’m already sentimental

for my yesterdays. How non compos mentis is that?

Time for another one. What do you say?

Time for just one more. Come on. Sit yourself down.

I tell the kids I’d bring them here when they were young.

Parked them over there at the corner table

with a bag of chips and a plastic jug of pop.

I knew this place so well back then.

It was my breathing space, my just in case.

Sat at this bar, right about here, and talked to Jack,

when he owned it, name above the door,

captain of his ship.

Now, when I remind the kids, they shake their heads,

and dance their eyes and hide their smiles behind their hands.

Today, there’s no one that I know in here at all.

Say, that drink slid down too quickly. 

What do you say to another? One more and then that’s it.

My day today? 

Another get-in-line take-a-number kind of nothing day

Tomorrow promises great eternal truths.

Perhaps worthy of a story?

Or a tune from my kazoo?

Or a dance. How about a dance?

A pirouette? A hoochie coochie?

No, don’t get me started on tomorrow.

We’d never get home.

Just one more drink all morning long.

After his career in human services, Bob returned to his passion for writing. He regularly contributes a personal reflections column to The Sarnia Journal. Bob's verse, short stories, and articles have been published in a variety of small magazines. His blog, Bob’s Write from the Start, is aimed at others who are also renewing writers.