Like One Besotted

A Poem by Linda Stern

The bar right here on Broadway’s been remade. 
That tacky bar where once they threw you out
and almost got the cops. You later said
you could recall one thing without a doubt—
that she had left you broken and alone.
And I believed you, held your trembling hand,
then held my breath, wanting you for my own.
You stopped and stared, pulling yourself to stand.

The bar’s got tables on the sidewalk now. 
The autumn, as I sit here, beckons us. 
The flowerpots with asters at the gate
say hope. But time’s a fiend that won’t allow
another take. Did we think happiness
would hunt us down, or else that love would wait?

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Young Woman Holding a Glass of Wine, Ary de Vois, 1632-1680

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