Blue chalk boxes, white chalk lines.

Those two non-cougars
put up a hell of a fight
but as the boys said
I was doin' work that round.
Three in a row, four in a row--
even called the pockets.
I set my partner up
to sink the final ball.
It was an across-the-table shot
that I advised him not to take.
Would've begged had their been no shame.
Sure as shit he sunk the cue
and surrendered the game of my life.
I swore the jukebox jinxed us, went back
to drinking my spiced rum cocktails.
The bathroom mirror proved her right again:
my new thrift store button-down was pink
not salmon. I may or may not have defiled the wall.

The next joint was no better in its luck index.
There was a five-dollar cover, a rare occurrence
for that painfully predictable hole-in-the-wall.
The band played mostly songs from
the same defunct grunge act.
A brother member caught my ear
and forced me into talking shop
for two cocktails and three shots
until the lights flickered
signaling Last Call.

My friends and I were filing out
into the downtown city street
when five gunshots echoed
from what sounded like a few blocks away.
Driving up the main drag towards home
revealed the crime scene.
Five squad cars formed a semi-circle around
a strip of sidewalk littered with
derelict denizens with questionable intentions--
roaches running from the rollers, a cynical street fair
at four a.m., more tax dollars thrown down
the tubes along with the life of a dark-skinned Duane Doe.

It happened too late to make today's paper
but I'm sure I'll see it in tomorrow's.
It's a small town, but not too small.
Someone besides my pool partner scratched on the eight.
Let's hear it for impeccable timing.