JOHN AMEN
After Passing

He went to a topless bar
where dancers were wounded
and men sat silently
like students in a Victorian classroom.
The television blared in the background,
live coverage of the deployment.

His attention was torn
between women moving lithely
at first, then, as their arteries drained,
collapsing in pale crescendo;
and the grim images on the screen,
craters forming in the branded earth.

No one wanted to be where he was
or had anywhere else to go.
The bouncers were as thick as safes,
as inscrutable as iguanas.
As he reached to put a twenty
in the g-string of an autistic co-ed,
the first plane crashed in the parking lot.

Nobody moved, the music continued playing,
some Bob Seger song, then ZZ Top,
and slowly they settled in,
men and dancers alike, everyone
bleeding, scared to speak,
quietly relieved, that this might be
the reprieve they were looking for.