Thing-a-day.com

An Ode to the Smuggler’s Inn, my favorite bar in Hong Kong. (Photo is from my last visit there, in January.)

It started raining, a sudden downpour in Stanley.
We ducked into Smuggler’s for dry shelter
And a few beers. It is a good place, we decide,
when someone buys us all a round.

‘Do not scream, even when it hurts,’ the sign says, unless
it’s with laughter. Actual pirates drank here,
ages ago. Now we yo-ho-ho it up, laughing off the rain
and cracking up the landlord, making outlandish toasts to impending typhoons.

Love its riotous jukebox, playing the Fall and the Saints,
It’s stinking hot, wringing wet, but who cares.
We are in Hong Kong in June, but have found home,
halfway around the world.