Birdie's Bar

Birdie’s Bar August 19, 2008 To the old Plymouth Mom came to salvage her brood We’d hear the crunch of gravel beneath her feet She dragged us three sleepy eyed girls Sullen Curious Non-entities We took our mealy mouths up and followed her Out of the warm, closed-in car We all had to go to the bathroom We all hoped for a treat She always remembered us As we were Tucked away in a locked car, somewhat threatened Injured by time, her pleadings, his resignation and defeat The door opened The smoke escaped into our eyes We traipsed around tables with yakking customers Drinking liquid sunshine Gut-rot Spewing epithets We bounced off the stools plastic corners Cracked with resistance of our efforts to spin them as we passed If luck had its way Birdie would be playing the boomerang Her platinum hair bobbing up and down with her Wrinkled body We looked for Dad and he looked for us What did he wish? Sometimes he treated us to a hamburger Or we’d get our orange Nezbit sodas and peanuts to take back out to the car We were grateful for any small thing then He’d come to us sometimes He leaned over us smelling like Lucky Strikes and Budweiser His smoldering gray work shirt, his worn jeans, His blue blood- shot eyes, sad and forlorn, Love passed like a vapor between us and Fear was a given, a constant companion No one knew anything about The bar was noisy with men’s bawdy laughter The wicked laugh of a man at a woman he scorned Or she; The evil empire, the corporation, The low pay, the idealistic boss The economy The lost hunt for a deer that got away The hunger for a justice they knew little of And contributed less The laughter was For the pain they protected Everyone’s pain The beer flowed and frothed while The pang of the women who left them And the pain of the children who stayed Out in the car Hung around Birdie’s Bar Reminds me of a rattlesnake We killed in the summer All the ‘car’ children Hiked the hills Around the bar About five of us Roamed like Indians Whooping over sagebrush Determined to create The sunshine somewhere other Than at Birdie’s Bar