The Most Healing Place I've Been

THE HEALING SPA

Bob's Discount Christian Counseling Center and Bait Shop,

down on Highway 2,
just out of Kiwaukee,
along the Prescott River,
a place that was old,
hadn't been remodeled
in thirty years,
but kept up,
all the plastic inside,
the blinds, the plexi-glass
widows and skylights
were faded yellow by the sun.

The attempt to stock the shelves
with a little bit of everything
looked abandoned,
and as old as the blinds.
The gas pumps outside long
ago gave way to lack of use:

Premium: 47 cents a gallon

I stopped mostly
out of curiosity,
and to stretch my legs.
The sun was warm,
I realized I had to pee,
and I was the only one on the road
it seemed.

There on the door
was a sign, the ink slowly fading away
like everything else,
begging the momentary question
as to who owned the place now,
but I read that sign:

OUT OF BUSINES
NO ONE WANTS TO FISH WITH
THEIR THERAPICT

I laughed.
I laughed until I cried.
I cried until I laughed again,
the sadness of a place neglected,
so juxtaposed against
a sense of humor to the very end,
a quirky idea that didn't work out,
from a human just as quirky
it seemed,

who maybe died all alone,
his kids off in urban areas wanted
nothing to do with their
dad's remote retirement dream.
So the place sat empty and ignored,
until I came along.
I lifted an imaginary coke,
one of the bottled ones from inside,
a mere 6 ouncer,
and toasted Bob, introduced myself,
and asked,
"What's bitin' on the river?"