In the Rafters at Birdie’s Roadhouse
504 forever. Hillbilly princess. FDNY.
For a good time a hard man is good to find.
Got nookie? Life is too short for bad moonshine.
My sugar daddy went to Texas and all I got
Was another sugar daddy to hold his spot.
Get out of jail free—blame it on moonshine.
Lost harmonica: reward. Sixty-nine never gets old.
Watermelon slice with gumbo by the bowl.
I lost my money and my teeth to bad moonshine.
Body piercing saved my life. R.I.P. tattoo
For Wanda—forever sweetheart and fellow wino.
In Lent I’ll lay down my lust for bad moonshine.
Tears in my beer. Along with his big nose, Paulie
Was here. Says he shot J.R. Look—a bullet hole,
A chalk outline. Shot up the place on bad moonshine.
Beerly Departed, may you crash the pearly gates
Before the devil ever knows you’re gone. No point
in being respectable. Give it up for bad moonshine.
–Alison Pelegrin
Alison Pelegrin is the author of Big Muddy River of Stars, winner of the Akron Poetry Prize; as well as The Zydeco Tablets; and three prize-winning chapbooks, most recently Voodoo Lips and Squeezers. Her forthcoming book, Hurricane Party, will be released by the University of Akron Press this fall.
