In The Pines
(for Hank)
Visiting my brother downstate
on Mystic Island, Ocean County,
on the Jersey Shore, we go
past cranberry bogs and forests
into the Pine Barrens
in Burlingon County in search of
The Jersey Devil.
We travel dirt roads, deeper
into the Barrens. Forks
in the road give way to even
thinner dirt roads, all without
street signs, lampposts, post boxes,
but we know there’s life.
We stop the car so I can take
pictures in the eerie silence.
We find ourselves outside a dive bar,
The Lower Bank Tavern, where
the weather beaten sign says:
FUN, FOOD & SPIRITS—
DO IT IN THE PINES.
Little more than two shacks
combined, but the place pulls us in.
Old men, old salts, dads
and sons drink this late afternoon.
I hear their conversations: catching
tides and working the waters.
We order a couple Jack & Cokes.
They eye us suspiciously then
look away. There’s a menu board.
We order something to split
from the weather beaten woman
behind the counter who knows everybody.
‘The chef’ from the kitchen brings us
a thick liverwurst sandwich with
raw onions and hot mustard on rye.
She’s weather beaten too, mussed
hair, but offers us a genuine smile.
We baptize the ancient trough
in the Men’s Room, take no growlers,
have found no devils, but head for home,
bellies full, before full dark in this
WiFi-dead zone.