Looking at a Lone Woman in a Bar by Doug Holder

          *The Burren Pub: Davis Square

They are always so impenetrable.
A dead stare at the wall.
Her drink,
Some half-empty prop.
And the cigarette...
Still holding
A torch
But for what?

No -
My gaze will not be met
And the clues
She will leave
A certain dead end.
And the cigarette will smolder.
The smoke
Will follow its trail
To oblivion.



-Previously published in Poems from the Left Bank: Somerville, Mass. (Propaganda Press)



Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press and is on the board of the New England Poetry Club. He teaches at Endicott College in Beverly, MA.