4:04? 4:07? Mid-
Afternoon. I rapped on the locked door.
Frank let me in. Outside, a whore
Bought drugs. Fifty bucks a lid.
At the end of the bar sat,
As usual, Elaine, counting receipts.
“You look”—she said—“like a stray cat.
Bad day to write so you hit the streets?”
I’d spent the day trying to describe dawn’s light
No, not sight. Dawn’s smell.
A smell that was bright.
(Elaine was right. I looked like hell.)
I had sniffed through
my apartment and down the street. No one cared.
It was, after all, New York. Who
Paid attention? I fared
No better than at home.
At home, I made lunch. Cut open a cu–
–cumber. Home was my biome.
My word’s ecological niche. Who
Would have thought the right word
Would be so close at hand.
Done for the day, I was lured
To Elaine’s for company and
To ballyhoo my find.
Unimpressed, Elaine
Bought me a drink. Never mind.
Drain
The drink. Kiss her cheek.
John Henry Kurtz. Talese.
Jack Richardson. Kipps. Every week,
Thursday night, we’d squeeze
Around the round Family Table.
Odd knights.
Plimpton and Mailer when he was able.
If Elaine hadn’t barred him for his fights.
Terry McDonell, Harvey White. Hotch, Lapham, and Fred.
Round the round table. We lied. Fiddled facts.
How many of us are now dead?
Those nights. We sighed over lost loves. Lost contracts.
Bruce Jay taxied in, broke
And naked, under a hotel sheet.
Who’s in the bathroom doing coke
On the window sill. A time never to repeat.
Someone’s date—a fire-eater, real fire-eater—who lit
A cigar with her Bic’d breath. Breathing flame.
Why did we meet? Thursday after Thursday. We somehow fit
With each other. It wasn’t fame. Or to declaim
“The Face On The Bar Room Floor.”
Or “Abou Ben Adam.” Or
Eliot’s Waste and Wasted Land. Or more . . .
That drew us there. Nor
The chance pick up or put down.
Thursday after Thursday. Whenever
we were in town.
As if we’d meet there forever.
Actors, directors, and the rich
who followed. Lawyers from Centre Street.
A Wall Street Quant. Our Niche.
The Police Commissioner. Gagsters and gangsters. Our feet
Led us there. Thursday after Thursday. Gone
The White Horse and The Lion’s Head.
Gone Café Loup. 21 gone. Gone.
What do we have now instead?
Mere memories, those bars. I haunted them.
Now, they haunt
me. When will such a time come again?
And, if it did, what would I now want
From those haunts?
We, exiled ghosts, in our private Vermonts.
Me. I’ve taken care of all my wants
But I’ve outlived my restaurants.
Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images