Katrina

You would have loved it here
the orange red Chinese lamps
surrounding the long U shaped bar
the bartender dressed in all black
his short black hair and silver jewelry screaming LA
but there is something charming
about his quiet, slow and deliberate movement
he is trying not to disrupt the poet’s voice.
the red wine here is dry and I don’t know if it is good
or if I am just content because the atmosphere
and the company is pleasant.

I am trying to block out the sounds of the register so I can 
get lost in the voice.
you gave me one of Frank’s books two years ago
five months before you died.
I still remember when I found it.
we were in Borders and I called you over
to read a poem from it, “Just Now We are Sitting in Sunlight”
was the first poem I turned to and I remember how touched
we both were by it and how we wished
we could be loved like that.
at our Christmas dinner you gave it to me!
‘To my true friend, Tanya enjoy!’-Katrina
I read that note as often as I read the poems.
I have not heard Frank read before not after all these years.
as he reads from this book I am thinking of you
and knowing that you would like it here.

Tanya Olson