Long-Kept Bar

Publican, tell us your 
stories. Were you there
when Turgenev's peasant
sang that song? Were you
watching when the green 
glass broke the skin on a life
that was already washing
away? No more yes or no;
what do you wish for when
the store is quiet and there
is a regular mayhem happening
inside the one person in front 
of you, brewed and fermented
to the point of a poisonous 
unethical ethanol, barbed wire
fish hooks stuck fast and slow?