Tonight's Poet Corner: Barney's Dead

Barney's Dead

the petroleum smell
so familiar
in Old Barney's Coffee Shop
by the Chevron station

Barney pours my coffee
then goes into the kitchen and
promptly has a stroke while
baking muffins

no one notices, of course
until a regular
(fifty-eight years old and
bustier than a
cheerleader) wonders why

Cristóbal is getting her tea
instead of the big
white guy

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