Poem from a Hat: “Way Out Club"

[lofro]

"Way Out Club"

I spent my twenty-first birthday punching you-
at least symbolically.
Our plastic robots, one red, one blue,
Atop a yellow boxing ring;
They juked left, faded right,
Threw uppercuts and jabs so rough
They’d knock an opponent’s head straight up,
Revealing a thin white line of plastic,
A rock’em, sock’em spine,
Ready to be reset and revealed again.

I never felt drunk as I sat there in the booth
Across from you and your girlfriend,
Megan tucked safely beneath my arm;
Not even after my father came to the table
And forced on me a shot of mother’s milk,
Nor after I’d finished the strange green thing
the bartenders gave me free.

Better ways might have existed
To pass away that ephemeral night,
Better ways than sitting there with you and Jenny
And Megan in the dark of that bar on Jefferson;
Perhaps something with elephants and limousines.
But I honestly can’t imagine how they could surpass
Spending my seven thousandth, six hundred
And seventieth night with the girls and you,
fighting plastic robots and bad rock and roll.

-10/16/2007