At Jimmy’s
I
That sideways man with a pool cue
in a long black leather bag
limps to his advantage;
he is rhythmic and cool.
He is famous among the weed smokers,
bums picking up cigarette stubs,
and cooks on break.
He stutters until he racks the balls--
Then the regulars turn around.
Old welders, retired military,
and seasoned men with ball caps
worn forward with bills over their eyes:
They all
sigh.
He is suddenly so smooth.
Some part of his
brain was injured,
but not the part
where the game
is playing,
not the part that dances.
II
The bar pro
makes the balls
break apart
like a flock of bright birds.
The green table is his garden.
The fluorescent light is his moon.
His boys lean
into the
shadows.
Dressed in a
suit jacket
like a gangster,
iridescent in
blues and greens,
He moves in like
a night snake.
When he strikes.
the flock
takes sudden
wing.
III
A dark haired married woman,
still pretty at fifty
stops by Jimmy’s
to score an bag of weed.
If her husband
knew
the marijuana makes her sweet
and fleshy,
he’d let her go;
he remembers
this:
as a girl she
was beautiful.
Sometimes she
turns her head,
and a
lovely ghost
Inhabits her.
If her husband
could accept it,
he adores her
when she’s high;
she gets that tender,
wraith-like look.
|