Two Elegies

A modernist walks into a bar, orders
a drink and sits down on the red leather
booth in the corner, keeping an eye
on the door, all the while surveying the room.

He regards the blonde in the black raincoat
leaning on the bar, giving the bartender
an earful. He jots this down in his scratch pad
being sure to mention the smoky haze,

but when he looks up, she is gone. Neither left
nor right, neither low (not on the floor) nor high
(not ascending the cobblestone steps outside).
He imagines what violent white-gray wings

she must have concealed under her raincoat,
what globetrotting, sky-shattering mission
she must be on, how fast and far she’ll travel,
until she returns, click clock, from the ladies’ room.

                        *  *  *

A postmodernist walks into a bar and pre-
tends he already has a drink in his hand.
He takes the leather red booths to be all-
too-comfortable red booths and walks around

until he stumbles over a blonde’s slipped-off
flip-flops in front of the dart board. A dart
pierces his neck and lingers there like a flare.
Appalled by the simile he tears into a rage

at the patrons safely tucked into their booths,
at the establishment continuing to serve
unnecessary drinks, at the chairs not hung
from the ceiling, at the door that remains closed.

Calmed down, he thanks the blonde’s boyfriend, removes
the dart from his neck and smiles a smile so sure
it’s beyond such petty splits as pure / impure
as the gold liquor flows from his new neck hole.