Sestina for the Woman I Drank A Beer With At Lazlo’s South, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2019

A man sidestepped me further than needed

this morning. His feet crushing

the frosted grass hiding its green beneath his weight.

How could he be so careless? There was plenty of side-

walk for the both of us. I was hurt. Sometimes

we forget the consequence of ourselves.

I wonder where I will find myself

one day. I sit next to a woman at the bar who needed

to ask me a question. She began with, Sometimes––

but stopped herself. The pause crushed

the air. Would it be the same on the other side

of me? She began once again, There’s a weight

to our decisions. She shifted her weight

in the seat. This I view as a habit in ourselves

when uncomfortable. The conversation takes a side

turn to something I don’t care for or need.

She knows this. I wonder what in life crushed

her in this way. My watch stopped at 7:26––no time

to tell. There’s evidence to our claims sometimes

but we have forgotten how to handle the weight

of conversation—the bartender breaks this by crushing

cans. How do we learn to take care of ourselves,

I think, as I look at the woman with three kids needing

to make a decision on her choice of sides.

Was my lateness due to having slept on my left side?

Fries. She says she’ll try the Brussel Sprouts some other time

but I can’t imagine either of us will ever have a need

to return here. Why would you tattoo your hand? The weight

she thinks this ink carries on me is heavier than air on ourselves.

As I think about her question, the beer she sipss is crushed––

the moment of purity between strangers has also been crushed.

The conversation, again, turns. She asks, Do you like the sunny-side-

up? then explains, The way we eat our eggs says a lot about the selves

we want to be. Boiled, I say. There is always some other time,

or life, past or previous, to explore how heavy that question weighs.

About her first: I never want to be outside of my skin, this was a need.

We sit with ourselves at this bar, now loud––space crushing

but the conversation needed. I tilt my beer on its side

and realize sometimes the unsaid dries out heaviest.

Tyler Michael Jacobs currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Carillon. He is the recipient of the Wagner Family Writing Award Endowment. He has words in, or forthcoming: White Wall Review, Runestone, The Hole in the Head Review, East by Northeast Literary Magazine, Aurora: The Allegory Ridge Poetry Anthology, Funicular Magazine, among numerous other journals.