Get What You Can

At nights we’d sit out on the balcony drinkin Breathin That thick mug air Of a New Orleans summer evening. Livin as easy As they’d let us In the bowels of the Irish Channel Where magnolias bloom all year long Amidst the cracked walks And hungry dogs Not quite getting enough From the day’s trash. Crumpled ashcans turned asunder Over the curbing and into the street Like it’s some kinda joke or something. Windows open Worn curtains flowin Stereo blastin Stevie Wonder Down St. Mary’s street. And it was enough Sittin on that ragged dustbag couch with a friend. We felt like kings. Drinkin and talkin about the girls of last weekend, Discussin everything We’d promised not to tell. Our money almost gone, Dissolved away last weekend By alcohol solvent, Fun girls, good times. Yea, who cared if paychecks lasted through two good days of fun. The two fun days made up for the five hard days Sweatin out wages. We were drinkin Flambeaux from the bottle And the half moon rose Over night streets. A Palmetto bug flies by And into my place. Probably to join his friends Doin a song and dance on the counter. A mouse crawls along the electric wire Strung from the pole across the street To our balcony. For a moment I feel that the mouse May somehow share our feelings Of life’s simple pleasures. He crawls along the wire Maybe thinkin of Juicy tidbits left on the side of a stewpot, Or a discarded chicken bone Strewn behind the refrigerator, Wash it down with a day-old can of Schlitz on its side. I can almost see him smile As I toss the empty bottle of Flambeaux at him. My aim is short And the bottle bounces off the wire To sail down and crash Amidst the neighbor’s trash. And the mouse sails down too. We hear the plop as he hits the pavement. For a moment I feel bad For what I have done to bottle and flesh. But that New Orleans summer mouse Just sorta shrugs And starts to walk away. Until the cat darts out From under the landlord’s new Chrysler. In this world, you gotta get what you can Or die tryin. Glass crumples under our feet As we walk by on our way to the liquor store For another few bottles of cheap wine. Flambeaux, on a muffuletta night. Carl kicks an ashcan over And into the middle of St. Mary’s street. And that’s worth a good laugh. You bet. A magnolia petal Floats down Through the thick mug summer air And lands beside a scavenging dog.