Tonight's Poet Corner: My First Bar Brawl
My First Bar Brawl by Belinda Roddie I remember the blood streaking my lower lip after my father pulled a rotten tooth out of my mouth with an aggressive pair of alligator forceps. The taste of rust now is not so different than it was so many years ago. She remembers the day I made pancakes for her when she was coming back to reality after a migraine that pummeled her like an angry god's bronzed fists. I was good with a pan and spatula, and she was good at kissing me. They tell me that I shouldn't have stepped in, even after she began to scream. They tell me that it wasn't worth the spilled drink, or the stained shirt, or the punch in the jaw, a strong enough blow to knock two of my molars askew, like ivory splintering in a collapsed piano. But I had been playing a jingle on the bar's old organ before the bastard put his hands on her, and although he may have brought me back to childhood flavors, I relish in the fact that I hit him harder,