Bukowski no. 22

It was past last call but the bartender was still serving me,
either because I tipped well or because she liked my company.
I was having a vaguely academic discussion about drugs
with a woman who wore a string of pearls across her forehead
in imitation of a long-discarded style.
I do not think the pearls were real but I have been wrong before.

She was asking me questions I knew the answers to,
and I was fond of her because of it.

The conversation shifted to be about her life, which she spoke of
for a minute or two before suddenly asking me
“Have you ever been in love?”
as I lifted up a glass of whiskey and twisted it in the light.

If a car had been on fire in the parking lot
I would not have been able to look away.
I ordered four more whiskeys and I told her
“yes”
and the next morning I walked the three miles to work
and before I tried to sell anything over the phone
I went to a vending machine to buy a Sprite
and the next thing I knew my cheek was on the cool tile
and I saw the world like a mouse would.
I checked to make sure I wasn’t bleeding and I wasn’t
and soon people rushed over to me.
Someone took me home so that they wouldn’t have to fire me
and as soon as the bar opened at three in the afternoon
I went there again.