The Men

As a kid sitting in a yellow vinyl 
booth in the back of Earl’s Tavern, 
you watch the late-afternoon drunks 
coming and going, sunlight breaking 
through the smoky dark as the door 
opens and closes, and it’s the future 
flashing ahead like the taillights 
of a semi as you drop over a rise 
in the road on your way to Amarillo, 
bright lights and blonde-haired women, 
as Billy used to say, slumped over 
his beer like a snail, make a real man 
out of you, the smile bleak as the gaps 
between his teeth, stay loose, son, 
don’t die before you’re dead. Always
the warnings from men you worked with 
before they broke, blue fingernails, 
eyes red as fate. A different life
for me, you think, and outside later, 
feeling young and strong enough to raise
the sun back up, you stare down Highway 54, 
pushing everything—stars, sky, moon, 
all but a thin line at the edge
of the world—behind you. Your headlights 
sweep across the tavern window, 
ripping the dark from the small, humped 
shapes of men inside who turn and look, 
like small animals caught in the glare 
of your lights on the road to Amarillo.