Whittney Jones

The Punch Line

after Kim Addonizio's, “Ha”.

A man walks into a bar,
but this is not a joke. I'm with him,
 
drunk, and we’ve come so he can buy
me another, maybe to kiss me
 
or get me to bed. I’m in love,
concentrating hard on what
 
he’s saying, so I don’t say it
first, but he doesn’t say it either.
 
Marriage is a three ring
circus: engagement ring,
wedding ring, suffering.
 
He laughs and next asks
if I’ve heard the one about
 
the priest who drinks his Guinness
with the hand that holds
 
his rosary. When we leave,
it's snowing, and we're the two
 
losers on the corner asking
why our affair was doomed to be
 
short-lived. Not that either of us
knows we're in it, even then.



--
Whittney Jones is completing her MFA at Murray State University. She lives in a small town in Illinois, where she works as a Project Next Generation mentor at a local library. She has work published or forthcoming in Revolution House, Zone 3, the Minnesota Review, and Parable Press.