I miss you something beer-soaked-darts-scarred terrible,
old graffiti-mirror, tuck-your-purse-between-your-feet faithful —
miss you like I used to miss the jukebox that hasn’t been
there in years — leaned up against a counter sticky
with someone else’s sloshed-over vodka soda;

miss you like the warmth of the only open business on
the block, nine-below wind chill and boots stumbling-wet,
miss you like the sting of an old haunt gone unhaunted, want you
like I wanted a refill on my draft, squinting down at a book
I’d read five times, killing time before a show weeping

over fictional characters straight through happy hour.
Hey there, well-drinks-special, germ-pit-peanut-bowl-up-
near-the-register, I hope you make it, I hope you
pull through, but if you don’t, just know that I loved you
something ice-clear-whiskey-bright terrible.

Sidney Dritz is currently reevaluating what to do with the rest of her life, which makes the angle to take in bios tricky. She finished her three-college tour of America at the University of Southern Maine, and her poetry has appeared in Glass Poetry Press’s #PoetsResist series, in Claw & Blossom, and in Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters. Twitter: @sidneydritz