Four Corners

A long time before the towers tumbled.
In Falls Church, outside DC,
Virginia plain and simple,
Best Western accommodated;
missing pavements,
chancing crossing the blacktop
just to get a drink.

A strange bar for a stripped-downtown mall
"Mr Deeds'" or "Smith's": so friendly
-both in Washington once I hear.
Middle youth bartender-ized
softened up by
a few stingers, we invented
a brand new cocktail.

An island bar in the middle of the room,
a table per square metre almost
enough to feed a coach trip
if ever one came along.
A shot from each
corner of the optic square
-mixers ad libendum.

Jack Goldfarb mixed mayhem in the shaker
and I drank it like tizer
though he’d no clue what that was:
just smiled and hoped for
a non-English tip
to help meet the payments
on his maroon corvette.

The evening shift came in. I could still
speak in tongues but the English came
harder, for Christina from
Carolina, Charleston if you please.
But she looked hard
at my ring finger, lingered
near my stool, coolly smiling.

At twenty to midnight I sat beside
the southern gal in her compact
and felt like a powder puff
as she drove a half mile
circle to circle though
I could have jaywalked
the twenty yards in
the time it took to kiss me.