Feeding the Piranha
- Yvonne Osborne
- May 6
- 1 min read
The tavern’s dark interior is refuge from the heat
that blankets the city in a migraine aura.
The top-shelf bottles are lined up like dancers
in lusty green skirts and amber hues.
The bartender blows foam from a pour
and our eyes meet in the mirror above the bar—
chunks of frost slide off my mug
like a glacier sliding into the sea.
I catch some with my tongue.
He wipes the bar with his towel.
An aquarium sits in the center of the backbar
and piranha sweep the perimeter with empty eyes.
Condensation drips off the bottom of the tank
and I wonder what he feeds them.
Music spills out of the back corner
where a barefoot stranger with a guitar
sits in a pool of light in front of a fan.
The room is a turntable
and the ceiling fan whiffs the nape
of my neck with a reminiscent chill—
wool scarves and galoshes,
snowmen with black button eyes.
The bartender flips a lock of hair off his brow
eyebrows etched in surprise, as if I’d spoken aloud.
A careless flip-flop dangles off my toe
like the towel he tosses to and fro.
The dance floor is chalky with sawdust
and the musician strums a lick
that will repeat in my head
like circling piranhas in an endless loop.
The room is an ocean, salt on our lips,
piranha swimming free,
he inside of me
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