The Day the Eclipse Came to the No Name Bar By Peter A. Witt

The man sweeping the floors said, heh fellas, 

get off your barstools and come outside, 

the sun is playing hide and seek with the moon.  

Six day-drinkers, some more steady on their feet 

than others made their way out the front door, 

noticing the cooler air and the darker skies.

Before anyone could burn their eyes by looking

directly at the son, a passerby offered a pair

of specially filmed glasses, which were passed

around, each man looking in wonder at the crescent

shaped sliver of sun showing through the otherwise

cloudy sky. Joe, took his turn looking at the spectacle,

then retreated back into the bar, two fingers

of scotch more interesting than nature’s gift.  

Felix and Edgar, looked at the phenomena

several times, each time smiling and saying

“well, I’ll be dammed” or some derivative.

The other three never looked at the mostly 

hidden sun. Jerome was held up by the building

wall, eyes heavy with drink, Butch confused

by where he was, wondered out loud 

if he could order a bloody mary, and Jose,

missed the importance of the event

due to his steady absence from Tuesday

night second language classes.

All and all the experience was mostly wasted

on the daytime regulars, as one by one they

made their way back inside, the bartender

happy to have his customers back, as a

newscaster from CNN showed pictures

of the total eclipse witnessed by the crowd 

assembled at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

By late afternoon the daytime crowd was replaced

by the after-work folks, who traded stories

about seeing the eclipse, while CNN switched

focus to breaking news from Ukraine.

Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet, avid birder/photographer, and researcher/writer of family history. He started writing poetry after 42 years as a university professor as a way of recapturing my storytelling and creative writing abilities, skills he'd lost in the stultifying world of academic writing. His work has appeared in several online poetry publications including Rye Whiskey Review, Fleas on the Dog, Open Skies Quarterly, and Active Muse