La Cantina

Grandfather rolling cigarettes
on his cigarette rolling contraption,

putting the pack of Buglers
back in his pocket,

then off to the cantina, La Gloria,
where the dancing girls

charge a quarter for each dance,
you could touch their nalgas,

and they would just smile,
drunk as they were.

Us boys would be assigned the job
of walking to the beer joint

to tell him, “Grandma wants you home!”
and the dancing girls---

(remember, these are not really girls,
they’re actually women in their thirties and forties,

over the hill, on the way down,
their thighs well-versed)---

these women cry in their dusty beds,
their faces buried in a pillow

while grandfather comes home
defeated by pleasure.