Experience by Steve Klepetar

“I believe in experience,” he says

regarding his half empty beer, amber

bottle dripping and cold.  “I believe

in the language of  mice, in spaces

between solid walls, melting

mirrors and clocks that tic silently

and lie.  I believe in layers 

of night, whispers beneath a steady 

hum of talk.  I believe we could 

reach between torn seams of bar 

smells and chatter, clinking glasses,

juke box tunes, put our hands 

on something in the ultra-violet range, 

a quiet heart, an invisible voice, a tongue 

made of glass.  This is your last night  

and rain batters the street, green 

and red by the garish sign: 

‘Theatre Lounge – Cocktails – Beer’

this point where our lives divide, where

threads untangle, where our letters

burst for a month, then trickle and fade 

to silence.  I believe in memories 

of taste, this bitter beer, these pretzels 

flaking salt into cheap plastic bowls, 

my ex-wife’s first, chocolate-scented 

kiss, the pea soup  laced with sherry 

I gobbled after working all night 

at the P.O., taste of rain in early May, 

factory grit in the air of this miserable town.