Behind me there’s a jukebox playing Motion
Sickness, pool balls scatter apart, a bottle
shatters at the bottom of a trash can beneath
the bar. It’s strange, the commotion of colliding
sounds; how everything suddenly feels crowded, but
I’ve come to understand congestion from rivers;
I’m most content hiding in the middle of a crowd.
There’s a group of regulars sitting by the window,
a pitcher of beer sweating between them & the one
in the Packers hat keeps looking, I swear,
into my past, trying to figure out if he’s seen me
before & maybe he has. I come here every time
I’m in Eau Claire. Maybe I remind him of a brother
who left one night & never returned or an old friend
forgotten to time. The bartender takes my order
& tells me their vision is slowly deteriorating.
I just nod & drink. Don’t tell them mine, too. Lately,
I’ve been hiding wasps in laughter & my eyes
are mirrors. Another round of whiskey as
the bartender wipes the inside of a glass, looks
at or beyond the door, confess they hate this place
which I both do & do not understand; I’m starting
to hate every place I go, but not the way these
bar stools wobble or how the stickers collage
the mini fridge under the taps. Loneliness
is a tricky thing. I can’t stop thinking
of all the hands that have touched this bar
& how those hands take traces of this place
with them when they go. Look, I should say,
a little over a year ago I drove my brother & all
his things to DC & recently I drove there again
this time to bring him home & of course
we talked politics & how our mother started smoking
again, but I didn’t ask if he was ok or what happened
& maybe there’s a sort of wall I constantly build
to keep people I love away. Now he’s back
in St. Paul & happy, but I’m still worried
about distance & what is lost in silence & I keep
thinking of this goddamn bar & all the things I have
& have not touched.