Nashville After Hours
       

Late night in a honky-tonk, fried pickles
in a red plastic basket, and it was all Loretta
on the heel-bruised stage, sung by a big girl
we kind of both had a crush on. Nashville
got the best of us, in a bar shootin' Fireball
with the band that just roused the Ryman.
Good grief we were loaded, shotguns,
and the soft-hearted. It's like this:
sometimes the buried buzz comes back,
and soon the kid that cut the lunch line
ain't nothing; and the cruel tongues licking
your insides are gone; the bully girl who
kicked you out of the city is no one, no rotten
crumb left, just a dizzy river of nonsense
in the waxy light under the bright signs and
look here, I won't deny it: I was there,
standing in the bar's bathroom mirror,
saying my name like I was somebody.

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Copyright © 2015 Ada Limón All rights reserved
from Southern Indiana Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission