The Fastidious Bartender
   by Glen Sorestad Glen Sorestad

Glen Sorestad is a poet from Saskatoon on the Canadian prairies. He is the author of many books of poetry, his latest, Hazards of Eden: Poems from the Southwest (Lamar U. Literary Press, 2015).

Each bottle, each glass has its perfect location
in his world and anything askew must be returned
promptly to what he views as harmony, the innards
of a Swiss watch, the beauty of a well-run bar.

Because he has personally organized this world
around him, he needs no eyes. The blueprint is
in his blood and he wastes not a single movement
as he pours and stirs, pours and stirs, with the verve
and nimble slickness of a master illusionist.

When he has no drink to make, he tidies and restores,
cleans and polishes – a bottle, a glass, a coffee cup,
an ashtray to empty and clean. A slow moment
and he glides away from perfect order of his bar

To straighten bar stools, or wipe down a table.
We introduce chaos, he brings back order.



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