Phillip A. Waterhouse: poem

GOOD FRIDAY

Everyone at the bar was rawhiding
the young hooker for not remembering
which Charlie she had the night before,
bar owner or bartender, it was both,
even the older prostie laying into her --
for freebies, it was still only late noontime --
both traveling freelancers trying to build
a sayonara stake, the young one, though,
showing an unexpected tender hide, turned
to a quiet patron not part of the late show,
flirting him as if to elicit some polite, even
sympathetic response, as if she had not
been fully broken tot he track yet and
enraging the older one, snake swift, who
spat -Puta!- completely trashing the girl
who began a screeching response that
fired an insider dirty trade tirade remindful
of an exchange another time, another
place, among partygoers the solo male
thought were all friends, two of the women,
one his close companion, Anglos, but
hissing the same epithet that broke a dam
of tales of conduct that left him the one
drained, only now, in the bar, the sorry
whores, the parallel of acts served
as a purge, releasing him for the first time
since to picture a weekend, tomorrow's,
without bitters, lay back, have a laugh
about it at last, maybe see an arrow
point all the way back, shit, who knew?