In Time Spent Well, She

    
laughed with a cackle.    
   
Most regularly, when the wine bottle    
was getting stale    
Her long, sharp, black, nails    
suffocated the glass neck    
while her face poured sadness    
in raindrops of smudged mascara    
and worn lipstick    
   
The worst type of drunk woman    
I had ever fallen on    
after the sixteenth beer.    
   
The bar stank of stale smoke    
and the splattered blood    
of teenagers    
reenacting old Western saloon movies,    
in search of some kind of    
validation,    
or attention.    
   
She lay a fifty on the table    
asked for a ride home.  
   
Our acquaintance ended
in the aftermath    
of gun shots    
riding crops    
and flying beer bottles.    
   
It was never more    
-nor was it any less.