two fifty a pitcher
the beer nuts are free
we come every Wednesday for Ladies’ Night
and a girl with a rose tattoo on her thigh
who dances like fingers trailing through water
or a breeze that blows through a room full of candles
she looks very much like a young Mia Farrow
her hair is the color of thousands of summers
our hair is thinning and beginning to gray
we look a lot like boarded up houses
or towns that were flooded and washed off the map
the beer mugs are frosted
the beer nuts are free
we come like a lion and leave like a lamb
we watch her as if we wore paste-on mustaches
and drink to forget all the chances we had
to dance like the girl with the rose on her thigh
who is bare in the light
and does not give a damn.