Mary Todd's Bar Poem by nathan martin

under the bay bridge in astoria there is a brick
bar with a broken seal door gnarled, tangeled and scraped.

three bare knuckled hindges of iron and a circle with strange
ingravings on it welcome the thirsty kingfisher.

whose kingdom is a bundle of yellow and white nets
tossed in the bed of a blue 84 ford pickup parked
around the back.

her the locals always park in the back and fill up
on busch beer in the can.

stacks of cardboard boxes full of empty cans line the hallway
leading to the bathroom and the backdoor.

the bar is an old solid piece of maple with countless carvings on it,
from what looks like a pocket knife or a fishhook.

scribbeled and carved names like john and neil are everywhere,
but the wood looks old enough to have jonah and noah on it.

now the whole place smells of salt and whiskey,
the kind of salt thats in the air and settles in your
mouth under your toungue.

nobody know's better than mary herself, they say one day
leaning over the bar she looked over her shoulder at the
sunlight coming through the window and turned into
a pillar of salt.

of course that was years ago in the old testament and you
know how fishermen tale tall tales, especially at marys todd's.