Next up in our series of pieces from Crossroads III, we have “Lousy Food and Warm Beer” by Olivia Vande Woude. The rhythm of this poem is just beautiful. Look for a new poem each week, and submit to Crossroads IV now! And thank you Olivia!
Lousy Food and Warm Beer
Beads of raspberry paletta sink onto the tips of my fingers
Creating a bright film of sugary madness.
Watch a rugged man take a drag from his white cigarette
Pausing
Rolling the blanketed tobacco between fingertips
Exhaling
Smoke billows
A column of dream.
Bandana, an indigo color
with a black tail of paisley.
Wrapped cloth sits precariously
On sunburned ears
Shirt boasts:
“Fishermen’s day in Stonington: nineteen ninety one”
“Day” barely
A splatter of paint
From when he worked
on Old Burt Beeson’s cottage.
Smokes the butt down to a nub
Dropping it carefully
Stomping it to a fine grey ash.
Paisley reassured,
he enters the shingled pub
whose vinyl sign promises,
“Lousy Food and Warm Beer”.