I was bartending at the Chez Paree on November 7th 1991
when suddenly a man walked in as grim as a Russian with

a map of Vietnam tattooed down his arm (flanked by rifles
still blazing) and placed a tensed hand to the polished pine

I drop our town’s finest drinks on. He ordered shots of gin
and began to groan before they came so my regulars June

and Candy, Mickey and Darnell halted their chatter to inch
toward him as if a world were opening the way those vast

doors at the plant down on High Street open and out rolls
exactly what we need. Darnell was the first to get touched

as his own tatted skin sent bone up the neck of the man to
work his childhood and before that the wandering of stars

and Candy moved in too, unearthing, a love she had buried
so I withdrew to lay the stylus down on new sounds of sin

for there’s likely tomorrow and the rain in the parking lot
falls on cars that like jellied cells in our veins take us from

here to the oyster opening, which is the true work of God.