Rosie and the Babe
The birds perch on Rosie’s bar
Like they own the place
Each staring through the dusty
Window panes
At where Babe Ruth whored
The fat man’s ghost
Still humping after 40 years
A beardless Santa Claus
Drunk on hotdogs and fame
Rosie,
Made bird-like with age,
Was 16 then,
Star-struck as she eyed the man
Who made use of the second floor
He tipping her for small favors
Each coin as previous as a complement
To a not-so-pretty girl
Seven decades later
She still sees him as Odysseus
Fresh from feeding on
Pig’s feet and win
Carried god-like down the back start
For the short jaunt
To the arena across the Hudson.
She shows every one where he once sat
Thought time and rain
Have rotted out the timber
Where the bed posts rattle
And Rosie moan
Taking each inch of his lumber
For the price of a new gown
She claims he loved her better
Than any of her later husbands had
As she wipes away the whirlpools
Left by beer mugs on the bar
She,
Bird-like,
Patrolling the widows walk
As if she expects the great man
To sail back to her some day
Refusing to believe reports of his perishing
Knitting his life into her
For all eternity.