Candice M. Kelsey

Ode to a Bartender at the Charlotte Douglas Airport, Terminal A

              I

Her pink-accent shock-blond bob
and sad-face emoji tattoo soften
the sting of not asking for my ID,
the before-noon margarita drinker

in me. Her library copy of It atop
the Avantco refrigerator, a badly
tattered Stephen King near her
sweating, half-drunk strawberry

lemonade from Burger King
distracts me from the intensifying
pro-Palestinian protests and arrests
at UCLA and Columbia on the TV,

from the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,
from the failed cease fire and dead
hostages. Today’s school shooting.
I ask her what it’s like tending to us.

              II

She shares her customer journal, fir
leather record of human wilderness,
a bookmark ribbon like a picket line
she boldly crosses. Firing questions at

her daily patrons. I open and read:
If you could give your childhood self
advice today, what would it be? Chris
wrote Hey kid, life will throw you

curveballs—remember the sun shines
brightest in the darkness. Beside I hate
my job
, Clint confesses—my fiancé
recently decided we should now go

our separate ways. -G took the longest
to learn I’m not bulletproof, no one is
.
On one page is Mick—I hate clowns.
Is life a pattern of connecting flights?

              III

How I’m falling for this barmaid
who asks me to contribute, taps her pen.
She can tackle an 1,100-page novel,
serve tequila lemon drop martinis and

raspberry Schnapps, offer Casamigos
to the lonely and bored, the judgmental
and despairing, all of us hurting who
find ease in forgetting, in discussing

single barrel bourbon instead. We
wait for layover flights and peace
this first day of September at CLT
where the Supremes chirp Baby Love.

Pouring my margarita, salting the rim
with curiosity, she asks what I yearn for.
To finish this stanza before I board,
I lie. Then softening, admit it’s hope.


Candice M. Kelsey [she/her] is a writer and educator living in both Los Angeles and Georgia. Often anchored in the seemingly quotidian, her work explores the intersections of place, body, and connection; she has been featured in SWWIM, The Laurel Review, Poet Lore, Passengers Journal, and About Place among others. A finalist for Best Microfiction 2023 and longlisted by Wigleaf’s Top 50 Short Fiction 2024, she is the author of seven books with the eighth releasing summer of 2025. Candice mentors an incarcerated writer through PEN America, reads for The Los Angeles Review, and binge watches “Murder, She Wrote” with her eight cats. Please find her @Feed_Me_Poetry and https://www.candicemkelseypoet.com/.