There are three of us in a babbling hotel,
close to the happy hour.
He is older than I,
younger than my father.
A man full of stories about the town that he left
when he was young.

A rich balladeer,
unique in his capacity to reflect
through the escapists fortune
of having been away.

In all the years till my father died,
when I was a youth and when I was already a man,
I never once supplied, or offered to supply, beer
or whisky or wine.

When I brought my mates around home,
we drank his beer.
When my brothers and I came to visit,
we could not retire to our beds while there was a drop left
in the whisky bottle that he always had available,
even if it was just the two of us doing the drinking.

You know, I never even thought of offering…