Bison Grass and Briquettes. by Tobi Alfier

He sat alone in a corner booth

nursed a whisky that tasted like coal,

watched the deadpan glamor of a tired stripper

left over from last night—

unwashed, unchanged, a couple of twins

the both of them, man and stripper.

He’d turned into the rutted gravel lot

on his way home last night and the car died.

He didn’t even call home, just watched the sky

turn from listless gray to ink-black raven-wing

and went inside, fourteen bucks and a credit card

to hold him captive until he figured himself out.

He started with vodka from a tray of shots—

the blond let him put one hand on her waist,

then no more touching without a buck attached.

Fourteen don’t go a long way,

but the ATM machine at the bar got him a way longer.

His night filled up quickly with sadly wrong answers.

By morning he didn’t belong to nothing but the bartender’s

eyes, and the eyes of all who passed him by.

Tobi Alfier is a multiple Pushcart nominee and multiple Best of the Net nominee. Both “Slices of Alice & Other Character Studies” and a reprint of “Sanity Among the Wildflowers” were published by Cholla Needles Press. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com