Of Money And Class, And The Plight Of The Working Man

Rosemary Daniell

"There is no loneliness like theirs."
      -- "The Blessing," James Wright

The tire bumps flat at three
a.m.    just outside
the country-western bar
where my woman friend
& I would not have gone

for this is not some chic
Gilley's or Billy Bob's
but the real thing    a working
class hang-out    & these men
lurching forth in their
cheap vinyl boots    their
sleazy polyester pants
their mechanic-grimy skins
are not our type    not our type
at all    still they stop
sway    stare    as I giggle
& coax    plead with us to go
with them    finally relent:

Opening his rusting Chevy's
trunk    lifting out a jack
the worn skinny redhead slurs
"Lady, I can't believe
you don't have one"    the lid
stands open    yet I know
they won't shove us into it --

it's hard for them to work
they roll against one another
drunkenly    I see the one
unsteadily twisting off
the lug screws already wears
a paunch    hands permanently
blackened    rough    the redhead's
eyes are blood-streaked    what must
be his one good white shirt    frayed:

for hours    they have numbed
their deep working man's pain
with booze    instead of crying
they have joked to the tear-jerking
music    staving off their one
hope: a woman for the night.

Yet instead of the touch
they crave    I thank them
Rosemary Daniell
with the salve of a six-pack
& think of you    a man
I have loved    of how we will
tear ourselves apart    bandages
of raw flesh    of how
I will inhabit the desert
of dinner & autograph
parties    of how tamping down
sorrow    you will drink alone
at a bar off post    of how
I will claim I can't live
at the hard blue flame of your
working man's rage    of how
you will tell the next barmaid
& the next    of just another
bitch who fucked you over
because of two little things
because of money & class.