The Joke

Yesterday evening I was sitting at the bar
not to drink but to grade
and four men who love me were there

I ducked my head and pretended not to see

One offered me a drink
One taught me two bar tricks
One looked sadly with a slight
outline of bitterness around his lips
One just smiled as if it were all
a joke

and it is. Four men walk into a bar
at the same time and the girl they
keep in the corner of their eye
because she will not be kept closer
bows her shorn head
looking in her glass of tea for you 

Everyone goes home alone
shivering

and the punchline hangs
suspended beyond the limits
of our understanding

but I don't mind
everything has been beyond
my understanding since
what happened happened

but that is another story
and one we tell differently

I think we even memorized
different endings

In mine you are mine
again