Bar Fight Tonight by Catherine Arra

She pulls on black cowboy boots, cinches the broad black belt, centers hips to breasts,

holsters the Smith and Wesson 38. She’s gunning for the Booze Bitch that takes her man,

lassoes him, wrangles him to dirt. Ranchers and cow rustlers … the way it is.

Not this time.

Boot heels echo on worn saloon wood. She sidles up to the bar.

Dusty cowboys tip back hats, step aside. The Bitch has her leg looped around his ass,

strokes his unshaven chin, tips him sips of Jameson, three more shots in a queue.

Poker hands fold to place new bets—the Bitch or the Blond—as if his life was a rodeo.

Catherine Arra is the author of five full-length collections and three chapbooks. Her newest work is Solitude, Tarot & the Corona Blues (Kelsay Books, 2022) A Pushcart nominee, Arra is a native of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where she teaches part-time and facilitates local writing groups. Find her at www.catherinearra.com