Son of a Gun

Simon MacCulloch

Storefront street, only darkness behind the doors;

Wind whines through, and you

Sniff the meat of the ghosts of a hundred whores,

Lolled in the shade, replayed

Along with the fights that the wrong men always won.

Real or unreal, the deal

Winks and excites like the click of a well-oiled gun;

Dollar a time, no crime,

Not with the law taking cuts from the sweat-stained green.

Purple and brown, sundown;

Open the door, and you enter the smoke-choked scene.

Through to the room, whose gloom

Tastes of the dust of the long-untravelled trail.

On with the show; you know

Memory must, though the sun-withered flesh may fail.

Then she is gone, and on

The broken-down bed lies the bullet you once shot, wild,

Drunken and mean; shot clean,

Leaving her dead, swollen fat with your unborn child.