The Bar
I am recovering from a broken promise of forever. My soul is bruised. My mind is clouded. I draw broken faces with indelible black ink. In watercolours, I paint stars and moons and suns like promises waiting. One can travel for miles through the play of light and dark that weeps so well on paper. Take a deep look.
Frank comes on the Thursday afternoons of succulent Prime Rib offered at this high end cocktail bar. It is an excellent meat. That is how I meet him. He drinks coffee. We converse while I refill his seemingly endless cup. I serve drinks at night.
There are women sitting at the bar on high comfortable stools. Their slender legs pose through slits of skirts or protrude nakedly from too short hemlines. They sip their cocktails slowly, careful not to smear their lipstick. They are buying time. Sometimes the legs twitch back and forth from the knees. They slip away like apparitions with customers well oiled on martinis or Rob Roy's only to return with newly glistening lips and wafting fresh perfume. I long to paint them.
