Steven Harz Music

Holy water shot glass 

Intoxicating and excruciating, a baggy Bob Marley T-shirt

hanging off your shoulder when we first met

I felt, drunk on you, 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 instead 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

fading 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

wrapped with pink ribbon and then

abandoned by you.

Now on a distant roadside, at mile marker 19

on rural route 81, on your way to somewhere

comfortable, or just new, traffic rolls by you,

but my eyes are here being burned by images

on blistered Polaroids of us, and my hand

by the phone number on a half-empty matchbook,

slid with purpose into my back pocket on

our day one.

As I glide my finger across the digits,

determined to read our future in Braille,

I remind myself in the moonlight

that I want to find you and bring you back

like a happy ending that wants to begin over again

or like a sad and broken story that wants a

Hail Mary half a chance to fix itself.

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copyright 2014

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“Holy water shot glass” is included in my collection titled, ‘Self Inflicted Heart Shaped Wounds,” which is available in eBook and paperback at Amazon.