The Man Who Left His Keys

In the corner he sat

All evening, holding

His glass to his hand

And his eyes to the glass.

Nobody asked him his name.

He was someone

From somewhere else.

And nobody knew his look;

His empty eyes staring into the glass

Hoping to see something stare back.

His hair dishevelled from the heavens

Unloading their tears.

He must have been out there a while,

He must have walked a while.

He looked cold

He kept his coat on.

And he played with his hands

Like they had answers

Hidden in the fingertips.

Or the palms,

Or adjoining the arm.

I wonder if he found them.

An epiphany in the dim light

(That one always did flicker)

Struck him like the bell for last orders

Had sung into his soul

A hymn of some sort;

Who am I

To know.

And he stood with those empty eyes

Staring as if answering

A question from a ghost ahead.

But there was just

The pinball machine:

It’s broken but

Sometimes strangers try anyway.

He left like a decision;

Marching off as a hollow soldier

With a stare from the trenches

And his hair still wet

And his coat undone

And a blank expression

Wrapped around his face.

I thought that he’d freeze

If he had to walk home.

I think he lived far away,

He’s from somewhere else;

He left his keys

On the table.

By the beer he hadn’t finished

And the coaster he hadn’t used.

Who uses coasters anyway?

Sure the table gets wet

And it might make a mark,

But I don’t mind

I guess you are

What you leave behind.

A mark on a table

From the man who left his keys.