Uncle Patrick

the bar hasn’t changed, neon bleeding red down the walls, smoke hanging in the air like it’s got nowhere better to be, and I’m on the stool next to the one nobody’s sitting on, where Uncle Patrick used to park himself with a Campari glowing in his fist like something he’d cut out of himself.

he’s not here, but I keep the seat for him anyway.

Saturdays were ours. me with a Coca-Cola going flat and sweet on my tongue, him drowning whatever it was in red liquor, Sinatra warping out of the turntable through every scratch and pop. floors tacky with last night, tables carved up by men who’d had worse weeks than us, cheap wine doing what cheap wine does. we sat there for hours in the stink of it and called it enough.

the turntable’s gone now, some machine spinning discs in its place, colder, cleaner, wrong. I order the Campari anyway, that bitter iron taste I was never allowed, and the cold comes scratching at the window like it wants in.

I can almost feel him next to me, the weight of him that isn’t there. the room does its old tilt, and I raise the glass to the empty stool — your move, old man. it always was.

playing backgammon,
his passing not forgotten,
sitting in his chair