To say that business is slow
at The Cork & Keg on Monday
would be an understatement,
the usual assortment of drunks
sending out a ripple of applause
as Alisha on tenor sax and Drew
on guitar recreate the American
Songbook, the TV screen in a side
room featuring “The Best Years
of Our Lives” without the sound,
the veterans of World War Two
returning with various versions
of PTSD, though they didn’t
call it that at the time. I want
to ask Kaiya, the server, if these
are the best years of her life
but know that would be going
a step too far, and disappear into
my beer like a soldier going AWOL.
Soon I will stagger outside and greet
the new moon like my oldest girlfriend
finally inviting me to go all the way.

Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. His collections are Paper Lanterns (2011) and Crossings: A Memoir in Verse (2017) plus five chapbooks, including one in Mandarin. Recent work appears in Slant, Nebo, Cantos, Arkansas Review, Xavier Review, Cave Region Review (featured poet), and Elder Mountain (featured poet), and Mid/South Anthology. He can be reached at: gsloan@uark.edu.