Crisis
You are the honest man
drinking an honest man’s pint
and maybe figuring an each-way bet
or a yankee for the following afternoon
when on a sudden you are aware
that your coat-tail’s been nailed
to the bar-stool
and that your long-contemplated shift
to the corner with the one good light
away from the juke-box
is purchasable only at the cost of
a new jacket and the loss of the dignity
which it has taken you forty years to muster:
the woman is wielding a hammer.