"Sake Bar"

Just so much sadness

Hangs about these paper lanterns

Their floral patterns

This dead air of notions

Where the auras hover

As she pours another

Of her pressed flower potions

From the porcelain carafe

We talk of pictures

While our features dull

To brilliant negatives

Your blue eyes speaking

Languages more dead

Than could ever be lost

‘Round the orbit

Some wet glass ring

(Note: written in 2008, this poem concerns the Sake Bar that was situated next to my apartment building in New Paltz, New York. I was then attending the State University of New York, and some of my friends from campus worked at this particular watering hole. I spent countless nights there, most of them blurring together dreamily. Both good and bad times.)