for Alex at Cafe Lafitte in Exile

Everyone knew your place
in the cruise bar.
You were the fulcrum of youth
standing between two
older bartenders.
You couldn't fake a smile
the way they could
or slice a lime with the same
confident precision
of their calloused hands,
but oh, what sweet youth
you had - standing there
like some young buck
unafraid of it all in
new black Levi's with
a tight tee-shirt rolled high
around arms of someone
not yet a man. In time,
you will learn everything.
Then, there wll be another apprentice
to make old barfly queens, leather
daddys, and all the Johns out there
looking for some Mr. Goodbar
remember a life locked away long ago.

Jeffery T. Johnson