Beer and Love Songs on a Wednesday Night

by Richard Le Due

The father in another county

as the teenage mother

doesn't even have a nun

squeezing her hand,

whispering about God's plan,

how adoption could be salvation,

and she'll still listen to those same songs

about love afterwards,

except now she'll notice

the twenty-something rock stars

don't seem as good a match

for someone who's 16,

and the engagement ring

she threw back at him

says more about love than those songs,

and his smug hello years later

when she worked as a waitress

(even though she went back

for her grade 10 after dropping out)

caused her to go home and get drunk

says more about love than those songs,

while the half sister I met three times

seemed nice enough

for a stranger.

Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has been published both online and in print. He is the author of seven books of poetry. His latest book, Everyday Failure, was released from Alien Buddha Press in October 2022.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Ángeles. His artwork has appeared over the years in Medusa’s Kitchen, Nerve Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, and Rogue Wolf Press, Venus in Scorpio Poetry E-Zine.