Shards of ice
Her stare shatters over us like shards of ice
I sit on my usual stool, thumped to death nightly by the back beat of the juke box behind me.
She twists her limbs on stage to get us excited.
She slapped the face of a man two stools down from me three night ago when he offered to screw her for money.
The rest of us laughed, glad he was the one foolish enough to say out loud what we all think.
Benny the bartender says he gets something because he has an inexhaustible supply of snort.
He trades coke for sucks we can’t even buy at market rate.
Wolfman gets his piece because he owns the bar and the girls who come here to work know that part of they have to get down on their knees at closing if they get expect to be paid for being on their feet all night.
Those who don’t kneel don’t get hired back.
Jack, the back up bartender gets his share, too, though not nearly as often as Benny, and it pisses him off, since he has to dish out drinks to get the girl and pay Benny full price for the coke he won’t waste on no stripper.
The rest of us drown in our hormones, torturing ourselves over her as she twisted the knife she sticks deep into us with her movement.
She gets her kicks out of knowing we don’t get anywhere, here, there or anywhere.
So we get drunk, or stored, and crawl home alone, thinking about her even in our dreams.