Joe’s Place
Tending bar
on a school night
we’d announce last call
half past midnight
the help helping themselves
to a pint of beer
once the last of the students
made their way out
into the night
Soon afterwards
I’d find myself with pen & paper
in a corner booth
counting syllables
& rhyming words
picked up from strangers
who had no other place
to go for the night
other than here
february two thousand twenty-five
copyright j matthew waters
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