Bar Book: Poems and Otherwise

In this wholly original work, a barmaid grapples with the irreconcilable tensions in her work and personal life. At work, she’s torn between taking orders and keeping order. At home, she confronts the limits of a service ethos as exemplified by her failed marriage. Marguerite, the barmaid’s daughter, has a thing or two to say on the subject, for she, like her mother, is trying to create an instruction manual for understanding her own broken experience. Meanwhile, cocktails, barwares, and other bartenders chime in with their own points of view.

from “Cracked Ice”:

When I return, I’ll come in clapboard, stained

chestnut, with lead-based paint on radiators,

old fashioned, and a little bit insane

but sturdy to a fault. A spalting grain

on punky myrtle and no refrigerator

when I return.