Mimi and Mona Poetry: Love on The Left Or How I Prevented A Barroom Brawl

©Love on The Left

Or

How I Prevented A Barroom Brawl

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

Saturday morning breakfast off

Mill Avenue’s famous restaurant’s mezzanine

in the smoky, boisterous, and profanely

jam-packed Tapestry Room

and I nonchalantly quipped to the air

I wanted to tour old Route 66 to paint

and suggested we could both write.

George pounced on the idea

like a wolf on rabbit prey.

A momentary, penetrating stare

at my long and wild, frizzy, natural-curly hair

and he added I looked like some Fiji Islander.

An exotic observation for once

since he usually called me

you crazy Bohemian.

With an atypical burst of energy,

his chair scratched the parquet floor,

and then turned over,

knocking over a trolley of collected

and deposited dirty dishes with a loud crash.

Someone groaned Oh Hell

and the place fell into a frightful silence

as though they expected a barroom brawl.

The silence became so absolute,

the click of an electronic cigarette

being turned on sounded loud.

Only levity could change this atmosphere,

so, buttons clicked and pinged

on the table top and the floor

as I ripped open my full-length dress

and tore it from myself so

I stood naked...

except for my cowboy boots...

and began signing, at the top of my lungs,

I ain’t got no body.

Apathetic, crotchety, and cynical old men,

whose legs were too brittle and stiff to walk out on me,

stood and listened with the others—

not because I had a great voice.

I had an Olive Oyl body that,

after I finished my song and dance,

had them all bursting with laughter and applause

because, honestly, I ain’t got no body.