Have a Safe Flight By Ken Gierke

Broadway, the brewpub

where the stout goes down

smooth, like the flight,

make that flights,

in the stories told

by the man three seats over,

his son with his turboprop

going here, there,

giving an old man

the vicarious pleasure

of expendable wealth

as he drinks the same beer

as me and buys the cheapest

item on the lunch menu,

satisfied to have that

in his life.

Ken Gierke is retired and lives in Missouri. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming both in print and online in such places as The Rye Whiskey Review, Poetry Breakfast, Amethyst Review, Silver Birch Press, Rusty Truck, Trailer Park Quarterly, The Gasconade Review, and River Dog Zine. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and his poetry collections, Glass Awash in 2022, Heron Spirit in 2024, and Random Riffs in 2025, have been published by Spartan Press. His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/