Seated at a table in a smoky Bar, I trace the moist ring My beer mug has left behind On green leather buffed by Many anonymous elbows

A year I say to myself as My finger glides, between When we drank here first And now, when we drink again.

Soon we will have to walk out Into the night, into different times Soon we might become different selves, Perhaps unrecognizable beyond Different borders. Those whom I

Come to love leave - perhaps teaching Me to love even more. And those whom I Could have come to love leave as well, leaving Regret like smell of cigarette smoke in one's hair.

But tonight as I take the final sip from the mug The last and lasting thing I taste - often the only sweet Thing in an often bitter world - is love.