Elysian Bar and Grill

Is it a relief to you, God
to pester me with lint, with secrets
always others’ secrets that you
know already?
Some bartender
you’d be,
serving up our trials like a
Gordian knot on the rocks.
It’s hearty tuck and roll in your lounge.
Some bogus tint tampers
with the prairie sky in the mural; classic
State Fair cotton candy pink in
the clouds makes it
too fresh and immediate and wrong.
You shake a holy martini and ask
“why the long face?” even though
you know
in these immaculate circumstances
that I have no peg on which to
hang a dress of gauze
the filmiest angel wing.
So you’ll shake one for the road
a cash-n-carry of
catnip, of postscripts and
self-mutilation the old way:
on your non-answers that protrude
like a bayonet from a shawl.
For the good eggs, all explanations are
honey-roasted, chocolate covered
in a crystal bowl at the fingertips.
No tedious banality to spoil your stars.
All mysteries revealed,
no lint. No secrets.
The rest get dry pretzels, busy being
grateful to be here.