The Babe Cave by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

We get lost
following the GPS
and end up in beautiful
downtown Soo
Michigan.

It is the middle of the day
and everyone seems to be
stumbling around out of work.

Driving past that ugly Tower of History
that means nothing
across from the city hall,
we pull over along the side of the road
and wait for the GPS to recalibrate.

Some bum stopping to puke
over the back hood of a some jalopy
with shrink wrap windows
three cars in front of us.

Everything down to a single lane
outside the public courthouse.

Seems the justice system is busy.
Many females in black bubble jackets
standing out front
flicking smokes at one another.

And there we are,
with a new found direction.

Speeding through the back streets,
we slow down for some radar gun Nazi
waiting for anything through
a school zone.

As though he’s been waiting over two years
for 50 in a 45.
The slightest infraction.
To really drop the hammer on Valhalla.
Prove his manhood beyond
a reasonable doubt.

But we slow when we should slow.
Rightly assume the locals are crazed
with the threat of foreign invasion.

Working our way back to the I75 North,
we pass the only strip club in town.

The Babe Cave
with a sign that reads:
Topless Dancers Every Night.

Wanna stop off at the Babe Cave?
I ask my wife.
Sounds like a happening place.

She laughs
and keeps on driving
all the way back to the
Canadian border.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly,The Rye Whiskey Review, Outlaw Poetry Network, Under The Bleachers, The Dope Fiend Daily and In Between Hangovers.