Alan Bern
Don’t turn down the table in the sunbathed
outdoor seating area at the California Pizza Kitchen.
Celebratory drinks should be enjoyed outside with
the flies buzzing around your straw, the napkins blowing
off your lap, the bill paid by a friend, and the ominous
raven on the powerline overhead perched there as if it’s
a mascot for that lovely 12 ounce bottle of pale ale,
Lagunitas IPA, sweating on a nearby table. Stick with the
lemonade. If you sip just an ounce of liquor, you’ll drink
every drop in the place, embarrass your friend again.
No one likes a sloppy drunk. Don’t grow old even if
happy hour is no longer happy anymore. Don’t turn
ugly when you discover sunspots and blackouts are identical.
Cat Dixon (she/her) is the author of Eva and Too Heavy to Carry (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016, 2014) and the chapbook, Table for Two (Poet’s Haven, 2019). She is a poetry editor at The Good Life Review. She’s on Twitter at @DixonCat.
Retired children’s librarian Alan Bern is the author of three books of poetry. He has awards for his poems and stories and is an exhibited/published photographer. Alan performs with dancer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space and with musicians from Composing Together. Lines & Faces, his press with artist/printer Robert Woods, linesandfaces.com.