gamble

I’d put in two
and took out 56
the night before.

this guy who smells
like shit even though he
runs a business,
he was playing
with the money he earned
at a new job
he had taken
because the food cart was
not paying out.
he was proud of
his experience in
kitchens of all
kinds.

apparently
no one would tell him to
wipe himself clean.

I heard it from
around the corner, his
giddy shouting:
“I passed my rent
two hundred bucks ago!”
I went over
curious to
know which game had treated
him right, and how
right?

he morphed from a
stinking gambler with a
faint brown moustache
to a hero
of the bar in just a
few snap moments
with six hundred
and change to show for his
dedication

the same flush of
envy, then guilt came to
me as when I
see a woman
I want to take home and then
I remember
how wrong it is even
to entertain
the notion in
this addled libido’s
mind of my own.

sex that never
happened is in the same
arena as
watching a guy
wasting his cash praying
for one great lay???

I’d put in two
and took out 56
the night before.

that’s a better
track record than the one
I hold in bed.