Sitting at the table
with Bobby Charles
I could dream
a bit longer.
The bread pudding
thick in my veins,
the rum sauce,
a heroin
of sorts
making its way
straight for my brain.
Abbeville,
fried alligator
and catfish,
fighting in my stomach,
keeping time to a slow slow
drip of gravy
running down my legs
as I sopped up his every word.
This man,
broken and battered
as the fish on his plate.
A loner.
A fixture,
at table twenty three
day after
day.
Looking out on the restaurant,
holding court with the waitresses,
who pocketed his big wad of money
by the fistful
and brought him gin after gin.
Heart disease wouldn’t dare clog his veins,
not Bobby’s.
He sat,
fat
pouring over the sides
of his chair.
What life had taken from him
was long gone.
See ya later,
alligator.
