Larry Schug
van Gogh's "The Café at Night"
I think the poet is the man alone at a table,
head resting on his arm, cap pulled low,
his face worn like his threadbare jacket,
eaves-dropping on the couple whispering at the corner table,
though, perhaps, more enamored by the yellow aura
cast by the hanging lamps, creating still shadows on the red wall
behind the wine bottles and bouquet atop a counter.
Maybe he's just dead drunk.
The man in white, standing beside the billiards table,
is the owner of the café,
waiting, it seems, for the door to open.
The clock reads 12:15.
There is always time
until there isn't.
Bio
Larry Schug lives with his wife, dog and cats near a large tamarack bog in St.Wendel Twp., Minnesota where they are self-quarantining. He misses his gigs as a volunteer college writing tutor and as a volunteer naturalist."