Fragment from an American Folk Song

You’re drunk and you’re bored and you’re slouching beneath
an unwatched TV while that twat Toby Keith
sings on the jukebox. It beggars belief,
but Saddam’s ‘at the top of his list’.

It goes on like this until late in the night.
You can say what you think, but it might mean a fight,
so you fondle your beer with your mouth closed up tight,
but your free hand closed up in a fist.

first published in Battered Suitcase