poem of the day 03.26.10

dirty fingernails

she has dirty fingernails

she stops us and asks
for a quarter

i dig in my pockets
then look at my wife and shrug

my wife finds two dimes
and hands them to her

dirty fingernails
on a warm saturday afternoon

then we find our bar
on st. mark’s place

the last storied joint
on an increasingly gentrified block

i buy us two pints of beer
breaking a crumpled twenty
that i’m betting
against next week’s paycheck

nodding at the bartender

i feel good
for a change.