Read when you're in Miami

2/25/25

Mac's Club Deuce, Miami FL

You will always be my special friend,

Drinking a Jai Alai & a margarita at this dive in my twin's old neighborhood. This was where she had her first legal drink at 21. The first time I came to visit her, we were reunited for the first time in years after we'd left home. She lived in an apartment blocks from the beach with someone she doesn't know any more. Life works like that; we spend so much time with our special friends, lovers, even family members that we don't see again once the tide goes out.

We think forget them until BAM we return somewhere and that warm wave of emotion hits us. That's my favorite part of traveling, going back to places I was ten years ago, reuniting with people physically or spiritually. Now I'm here eating a roast beef sandwich playing pool and thinking about place, time, memory. It's important to write things down, to say them out loud so I will -- Anyone who loves me can come to the places I've been and I can visit the places my beloveds held dear and we can be together again, briefly. We don't have to let go of that intimacy even if we never speak again.

Being here, remembering or imagining, is almost like seeing you again for the first time. You're sitting at the edge of the bar on the second curve smoking a cigarette and double checking the bartender isn't watching before showing me the hidden outlet in the window so I can plug your phone in. I miss your harmless mischief.

I pay attention to this place you were in. That I'm in now with you. You wink. The neon pink & green above the mirror, the black & white checkered floor. This is a place you can love me in even though I am gone, you whisper. I love you so much it hurts, so drink my favorite beer. When the tequila rep visiting on a Tuesday afternoon offers to buy you a shot say yes. That's what I would have done.

When I'm gone or for whatever reason we can't be together any more, I want you to have a good time in my memory. Please promise me that when we remember each other we'll only think nice things. The sun's too bright outside not to.

Slim white pen stolen from the bar,

clear quartz point on the counter,

crumpled notepad paper faded list

*

of sentences I forgot to say before

the last time I’d see him, and a black

box of matches silver embossed.

The letters spell it out. Jazz piano.

*

I can never go back.

Each day becomes easier to forget.

Another moment under dim lights lost

as the fire burns itself out.

*

(bal harbour)

our clothes are heaped a mess on sand and stone.

we run, the darkness opens and we fall

*

into the surf. my special friend, oh where

will dawn collapse in sea foam bodies now

*

that we dissolve? the coral salt or bones

we leave behind in empty sneakers, damp

*

reminders, boxer briefs will show how we

were here once. moments. coarse together.

*

(skinny dipping, south beach)

If you are reading this, you are singular to me. I will try my best to remember everything.

Goodbye for now,

Joe

P.S. The trip ended. I came home and it's nice to be home. I can't wait to return, but maybe you can visit me sometime? I have so many things I want to show you. I'll be here waiting for your message always.

P.P.S. Just wanted to gently nudge you: When people show you they love you, let them. I'll keep saying it -- everybody loves you.