The Nightly Milking

"Do you want your keys back?"
she asks from her doorway
at what I know will be the last time
she sees me intentionally.
Small towns have only so many
dark corners in so many bars
where drunks can hide.

"No. Just don't lose my father's ring,"
I reply, screwing up my face
in a gesture that confused even myself.
He'd given it to me shortly before
going AWOL for five years.
There was a long period of time
when it had more power
than it should've.
I'd put it on the chain before
I headed out of town for two months
and what I knew would be the end
of many things. Funny how we mortals
insist on playing out what's predetermined.
Tending the universe-- what a crock.

She closed the door behind her
before I even got back to my ride.
See Spot run. Watch Mike whine.
Listen to the slurred songs
of a sick and unwed sailor.

Not that it narrows it down any
but I'd just returned from playing
"Angie" on the jukebox when the
newest voice of reason chimed in
with a precious morsel of the unpalatable.
"You're not gonna find your wife at a bar,"
said the whiskey on the rocks in what was
a backhanded consolation and the most
profound sentence stabbed into my ears in months.

It dawned on me like a cheap shot of grain alcohol:
I haven't had a functional relationship
since I was seventeen.
And it's not them. It's me. It has to be
or I wouldn't be here.
Or, I wouldn't be here.

I need to tell my father about those five years.
Something leads me to believe that he already knows.
Something suspects that that's why he left.
That ring with my name inscribed in its gold
was supposed to remind me to remain my own man.
Sometimes a circle binds more than its angles.
Sometimes a ring holds more than it should
at least to those who give it
to all the fine messiahs
and trust the wrong people
with the right things
making the worthy wish we'd never met.

Don't be late for your date with the sun.