The Saloon

by Lisa Marie Basile  

_  

There were no real men here,
no one that could make a little
soft claret cup bloom, no
one that could take a little
coffin varnish without feeling
like he needs to shoot a man.
 
I stood with a white sleeping gown in the door, and
the sunset flooded under my feet, and by the looks
on those faces they thought I was La Llorona
with my black rock eyes.

The shush was drunken,
the sound of clinking glasses against the
wood, the falling dust into the sun. I prayed
somewhere inside my godless head
don’t give them lick and a promise,
don’t smile don’t smile don’t talk.
It takes a crazy batch of sweaty men
to make me sing my scorpio song.


Lisa Marie Basile is a writer, living in New York, and Editor-in-Chief of Caper Literary Journal . She has had work published in CommonLine, Aphros Literary Magazine, Vox Poetica, and The Medulla Review, among others. She studied English Language and Literature at Pace University in Manhattan, where she received 1st place in PU’s Annual Writing Contest for poetry and fiction. “Her book, “A Decent Voodoo,” will be published on Cervena Barva Press in 2012. Her web site is www.lisamariebasile.com and www.caperjournal.com.


Lisa Marie Basile