Poem for April 14

Texas  Roadhouse

Do you remember

      that little roadhouse dance hall

       in Waco where the waitress

       wore red cowboy boots

       and a skirt short enough

       to serve as a coaster?   

I saw you look.

We were there

from the double bronze doors

of the Brownings Museum.  

O pomegranates and olives.

O Little Portuguese.  (And she was!

Her desk the size for a child.)

Those lovers who fled

as we fled parents who said

wrong, wrong, wrong

for each other.  What did they know?

Fools we were taking life by the spoonful.

God, we were crazy in that blue Plymouth

streamed with tin cans and shoe polish

words, pink tissue.  I was so embarrassed!

And hungry.   The best hamburger

in Texas.

Across the road a Sox Outlet.  We read

the word wrong, but you bought a dozen

pairs of black sox that never wore out.

Truly.  I washed those socks forever.

The elastic died a thousand threads.

We could have buried you in them.  

Maybe we did.

Are you dancing now in Waco

with that red haired waitress in her red

stomping boots.  O my darling, dance on.

Dance on.   

 Ruth Moose