Patio Confessional

The chilled rain patters

on the tired canopy, Prussian blue,

stooped over the tavern patio

The sidewalk slick with the spilled beer

of regulars gathering for their nightly ritual

A song plays, its melody like gauze

winding around my hesitant heart

tighter than laces tied on a funeral shoe

Potted petunias nod as if listening,

fragile as an apology confessed too late

Orange light pools from the sconce,

illuminating the scribbled grocery list

Purple penned listlings insist

foil, lettuce, cheese,

louder than the faded pencil

Written on cherry trimmed stationery:

Wants, the calculated strategy

of a chess master about to lose everything

Needs, a beam of moonlight exposing

the bare windowsill where his board waits

We sit across a small meshed table, rusty

the silence adding to the haze of his IPA

Smoke curls around our truth

We don’t have to say it

And we don’t have to prove it

And in the rain,

beneath the careworn canopy

Even with the song unraveling

my cracked kaleidoscope past

I don’t question the life that we share