Holy water shot glass
Intoxicating and excruciating, a baggy Bob Marley T-shirt hanging off your shoulder when we first met
I felt I should be forced to walk a sidewalk straight line and touch an extended finger to my nose.
On weekend barstools we alternated playing the game and arguing the rules with no clear winner
putting dollars in the tip jar and loose change in a 1970s back corner Wurlitzer juke box .
After Saturday night dinner and late night drinks I’d respectfully line up early morning Sunday
Holy Water shot glasses and I would drink mine to wash us with redemption but you refused yours
preferring to run away and take our memory with you like a boomerang that won’t return.
So now I throw darts in vain at autumn State Fair balloons in a last ditch attempt to win your
failing heart a last-leg carnival goldfish while you escape and hide like a linen closet skeleton.
Trying to find you I search for clues on collected bar coasters and cocktail napkin love notes
stored in an old cardboard shoebox treasure chest ribbon wrapped by you then and abandoned
roadside now at mile marker 19 on rural route 81 on your way to somewhere comfortable or new.
As traffic rolls by my eyes are burned by the images on blistered Polaroids and my hand by the
phone number on a half-empty matchbook slid with purpose into my back pocket on day one.
As I glide my finger across the digits slowly trying to read our future in Braille while reminding myself
in the moonlight that I want to find and bring you back like a happy ending wants to begin again
and like a sad and broken story wants a Hail Mary half a chance to fix itself.
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Copyright 2014 Steven Harz
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My eBooks of poetry and romance are available at Etsy – please visit my page:
Steven Harz Music 
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