The Maynard
Fall 2017

Le Mouton Noir

Let me tell you about the bar that I’m in; let me tell you
how I never miss you as fiercely as I do in a bar, a dim bar,
a bar whose walls are soft with cedar. And let me tell you
about this bar, this bar I drove to in the dying June light
so my little brother could meet a girl with pink hair
and a voice like a sunrise; this bar with its five stage lights
flashing yellow, red; yellow, yellow, red; this bar
with its portrait of a woman who looks like Frida Kahlo
on the wall. And let me tell you about Frida Kahlo,
how she was impaled by a trolley handrail in an accident;
how she lay in bed, injured, and painted her own chest
with a mirror. Maybe I should tell you how you are more
than a dim bar to me, more than an injury in a mirror,
but Frida can attest to the fallibility of things we lean on
and their capacity for harm. No; no. I am done with the trolley,
so instead let me tell you only that I miss you, and that I am safe
in the cedar-lined walls of this strange, empty bar around me.