don't you ever write poetry?

It rained last night. It was a welcome break from the sweltering, nearly immobilizing heat we've been having. On my way home, lightning arced back and forth across the sky and the rhythm of my windshield wipers gave music to the British lady delivering news over my radio. I was going to meet my best friend at a bar, a sort of broken down place in the broken down part of town. My favorite kind of place; it's the kind where you have drink after drink and take polaroids that you'll look at again years from now and feel a dull nostalgic longing for the good ol' times.

I parked in the sparsely-lit gravel parking lot, treacherous and uneven from years of neglect and full of puddles with depths indiscernible, and made my way to the unadorned side door to the bar. I could already smell the smoke, and there was a phantom taste of whiskey already on my tongue. Thoughts of seeing my friend, who has moved away to another city, rolled around in my brain but were suddenly interrupted.

"Don't you ever write poetry?"

Startled, I turned to search for the source of the distraction.

"Do you have a pen?" She was shorter than me, thin and dry as a stalk of wheat in a drought. Dark circles framed her eyes, her voice had a desperate and unsettling edge. I didn't have a pen, I knew that. I told her. "You have that big purse, and you don't even have a pen?" She indicated the large and beaten-up messenger bag that I always keep with me. Making a cursory exploration of the front pocket, I turned up with nothing, as expected. "I really don't, sorry..." I kept walking toward the door of the bar, wishing that I hadn't left the pen on my keyboard at work.

"Doesn't anyone write poetry any more?" More quietly, almost an inward remark, she walked on. I wish I'd had a pen, I haven't read any poetry in a while.