20210610

At Mickey’s

by Linda Lowe

Nights were full of guys strumming country on the foot-tall stage. It didn’t get more awesome than when Francine hopped up there and belted out “Stand by Your Man.” Her own husband was long gone, her kids, just babies. She dreamed of giving up her waitress gig, but too soon she was booed off the stage for missing the high notes, and when her knees gave out the coffee shop said sorry. Sorry say her kids, all grown up now, living too far away to take some burden off neighbors. Neighbors, strangers, ringing the bell, trying to, but it’s broken, like most everything.

6S

Linda Lowe's poems and stories have appeared in Outlook Springs, What Rough Beast, The New Verse News, Misfit Magazine, and others.