I land alone at the bar
making notes for a poem,
nursing a CC, waiting
for the others to arrive.
I muse about lines I never received.
No “Can I buy you a drink?”
No “What’s a nice girl like you
doing in a place like this?”
I wondered for years
what was wrong with me.
I would watch the vivacious,
attract men like fly paper,
not realizing no one would
stick to someone too shy
to smile, to make eye contact,
to buzz closer without fear.
So, when my husband’s new friend
hovers behind me and jokes,
“Do you come here often?”
he has no idea that
at the precisely perfect time,
he’d glided up to an amused
and grateful 69-year-old
with the ultimate ironic gift.
