by Ace Boggess
“Where Does the Night Lead?”
—online ad
A floor below my grandmother’s restaurant,
I sat on a striped stool at the bar
with Lana—my aunt, one year older—
while the adults drank Dickel or zinfandel &
pretended to have adult conversations
as if there were more to the world
than what was right in front of them.
The two of us giggled & twittered,
out of place in saturated solemn shadows,
then excused ourselves to feed quarters
into the country-western jukebox.
We were two marbles in a bag of jacks.
The bartender shook up Shirley Temples,
pink & fruity with grenadine,
so we could be alcoholics, too,
losing our troubles in syrup
that smelled of cherries.
We drank three or four apiece
on my grandmother’s tab,
then went home sugar-drunk &
happy to have learned this lesson,
to have been like the grown-ups,
even if we weren’t with them,
even though we were.
Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His novel, A Song Without a Melody, is forthcoming from Hyperborea Publishing. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.