"The Splendid Quetzal Lounge" by Karen Lozinski

Naugahyde face-making

with a swivel chair expert

sacramental ashtray flicking

smoking laws be damned

no one has a story to tell

but there are ramblings

about monotonies and minutiae

and in these liminal vapor curls

a loose camaraderie flourishes

flushes away regret and doubt

at least until another hour of dawn.

Was this place ever resplendent

is something only a newcomer wonders

bodies passing through in need of lubricant

aching for quaint distraction or ruse.

The only thing that counts here

is the comfort of those chunked up

by circumstance. There are so many more

of us than can fit in this homely room

populations that could fill the geography

of nicotine that fights the striated

wood paneling, renders hanging paper

and photos jaundiced, splotches the

floor in tacky residue. How whimsical,

how comfortable it must be to have

a life that worked out perfectly.

The glasses here are heavy-bottomed

and slide across the bar with purpose.

Their punctuation is unmistakable

when emptied and put down.

Karen Lozinski hails from NYC and lives in New Orleans. She's a multidisciplinary artist who earned her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. At work on a novel and poetry collection, her writing appears in Mantis, The Citron Review, Talon Review, Scapegoat Review, Red Ogre Review, The Dead Mule, Chapter House Journal, ellipsis… literature and art, 300 Days of Sun, Fifty Word Stories, In Parentheses, Defunkt and is forthcoming in The Bookends Review.