Tobi Alfier is published nationally and internationally. Credits include War, Literature and the Arts, The American Journal of Poetry, KGB Bar Lit Mag, Washington Square Review, Cholla Needles, James Dickey Review, Gargoyle, Permafrost, Arkansas Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others.  She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).

Friday Night at The Executive Suite Bar

Even in the long pauses between drinks she never spoke of home, just stared at her face in the mirror over the bar and wondered why this was called Happy Hour. Mostly full of businessmen exhausted from a week of selling nothing, so tired their hunches appeared fixed and permanent, stomachs and waists hidden under suit jackets made of Big and Tall off–the-rack clearance sale colors with complexions to match. Drinking on their own dimes, not feeling generous toward her, the bartenders, or their partners in sales lined up along the bar like chess pieces or dominoes ready to fall, they just weren’t ready to face their own homes yet. The shrieking daddy look at me’s and the wives disappointed for any of many reasons. They’ll all leave before the live band starts and she’ll be alone again. It won’t make no difference, never does.

Passing the Summer

Cheap boxed red and Fanta orange,

she sits on the riverbank alone

and thinks about how far she’s fallen.



How peaceful it is nonetheless.

He’d touched her face so softly

his hand could’ve held a prayer,



but she’s not the prayerful type.

When her heart fluttered that meant run,

it didn’t mean stay.



She takes one night at a time.

A runaway from love and lovers,

sleeping rough in a graffitied tunnel



of bad dreams and dark skies,

the night full of ghosts and broken

promises, a restless wait for dawn.

Dreaming Colors

Her words burst out

like a wild stallion exploding

through a corn field only she can see.



She was dreaming something,

and for unreal moments

she was in some exotic realm,



the dark waterfall of her

coffee-colored hair carrying

her like a sea-breeze



onto a ghost ship

and through the lit corner

of a room in her blind sight.



She sinks back into a quiet world

where even lovers are denied access,

and memories are as disjointed



as storm clouds giving way

to let the moon see lightning.

She’ll startle suddenly from sleep



as the morning light bleaches

everything pale.

She’ll remember nothing.