The smell of fish walks in ten minutes before Aristotle.

After he says hello, he turns around Miles Davis style,
with his back to me. He runs his long slender fingers
across the table’s felt as if it were a parallel universe,
a rabbit hole, a trap door that he could escape through.

He wears his shame on his dirty white t-shirt, ripped
and speckled with shiny silver fish scales.

He won’t tell me that he’s been back on the horse
for months now, instead he loses his balance,
catches himself on the rail with one hand,
leaves it there like his actions were intentional.

Then after a few seconds, he makes the other hand
a fist that he presses against his lips;
he blows his words through it as if it were a trumpet:
The transmission dropped our of my heart;
someone stole the kickstand from my fishing pole,
so I wearing out the tires, they took from me, spiritually;
I just can’t look into the tables, they’re crystal ball.

After a few seconds of silences, he disappears
into the bathroom. A new group of men come in,
they play six racks of eight ball before one of them tries
the bathroom door again; he stands there knocking,
then asks: Is someone dead in there?

For a minute or two, I think about the possibility.

But then Aristotle emerges, zig-zags around the tables,
past the men who cringe as he swims by them;
slowly he moves toward the front doors,
heavy at the hooves, yet light at the mane,
and pushes out into the streets without a goodbye.