Lulu Turns the Key

It was the night of the firefly

just after

an awful steaming

Dixie storm

in the once upon a time

American town of

Crystal City

South Texas.

 

And it’s where we catch Lulu

a late forties strawberry blonde

with a red ribbon in her hair

smoking green home grown

in her beaten up

pink Coupe de Ville

of questionable ownership.

 

A sight

for sordid eyes

on any given

Sunday.

 

She's parked

outside a neon Cantina called

'Billy's Super Rib'

that proudly never closes.

 

Where she’s worked

as a waitress

for seven years now

serving beef and bean burritos

to the soundtrack of tinny

Mexican radio

that annoyingly never ends.

 

She hasn't much

to declare

just the wet dust

and the sizzled wind.

 

The boys that

came and went

on motorcycles

Methadone

and mediocrity.

 

So Lulu flicks the roach

to the porch

and puts the wreck in reverse.

 

Slams on that old Joni tape

that plays all the way

to Calgary.

 

Her shimmering

Northern light.