The insurance salesman heads for
the dive bar
at
the end of the street, doors and dirty windows
keeping
an eye on his actuarial progress after work.
He’ll
probably make it to the den of thieves.
A
shot and a beer, and he’s at the neon table,
buttons
raising flippers faster than insurance rates.
The
gorgeous leggy nude lights up, and ping
followed
by ping sends morse code into the foggy sea
surrounding
the salty men who sail the barstools.
Lights
and numbers pull his eyes from his skull,
body
English thrusting his hip like a lover
against
the wood, against his growing years,
aiming
for the nude since his wife won’t go down.
High
score, high score. He’s in love with life again
and
lifts a glass of beer to the Michelob light
hanging
on the wall, a lighthouse for the wasted
who
need to piss when it’s hard to find the door.
Or
there’s darkness, a dark night of the soul,
when
the flippers lose their mojo groove,
when
the nude grows dim and mocks the move
to
juggle silver balls like a god who’s on a roll.
Then
it’s out the door and up the rain-damp street.
The
machine is omen to the dawn that waits,
a day when Fortuna smiles or clicks the man
like bait.
It’s
a self-fulfilling prophecy inside his brain,
but
he’s lost in numbers, columns, rows.
The
insurance trade is a game of stats,
a
prophet’s gaze into rabbit hats,
a
crystal ball with silicon chips and siren calls.
He
has forgotten that he cannot make it rain.
The
young boy might die in a number prime
while
an old man runs a marathon, every step a rhyme.
~William Hammett
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