A priest, a rabbi, and a poet walk into a bar
and we’re laughing already, calculating their clashing philosophies—
New Testament, the Torah, W. B. Yeats—all
the earnest sacraments undertaken in the name of world harmony:
loaves & fishes, bitter herbs, the spread offered at the free buffet.
We’ve even uploaded their wardrobes
(dog collar, skullcap, jeans & elbow-patched tweed)
as we wait for the next line’s classic setup for ridicule,
because we know the poet’s gonna be the one to rip
this sucker apart; it’s always the last one through the door
who gets the biggest laugh.

But we’ve forgotten the bar! There it stands,
waiting to be leaned on, a gleaming walnut shoulder
anointed with Scotch and spittle. Poor bar!
Elbowed, drooled over, kicked and beslobbered,
its whisky-ring tattoos a parade of evenings
lost to sorrow, to rage, the occasional pickup—

Are you uncomfortable yet? Itching in your seat,
muttering, Where’s the fun in this? It’s the poet’s doing—
they can turn bread into zwieback, wine into vinegar,
claim edification in the name of one lousy epiphany.
When’s it coming, the goddam punch line?

Oooof! There goes one to the gut.
A priest, a rabbi, and a poet at the bar. What’ll it be?
Old-Fashioned, Negroni, Moscow Mule—you decide.
They don’t speak. They aren’t acquainted. They just
happen to need something stronger than what’s out there
and enter the same establishment at the same time—10 p.m.—

where the bartender, wiping away some previous patron’s ablutions,
asks: “What’s your poison?”—to which
the priest thinks: Angel’s Envy,
the rabbi murmurs: Killer Whale,
the poet sighs: I’ve drawn a blank, just fill me up—
and the bartender sets down their drinks with a half-mast salute
to these disparate, desperate creatures
who already know they’re the butt of the joke
and gamely take the hit.