survival skills

my mother had
seven children
and when my father
left her for
the avon lady,
her best friend,
she went to work
in a strip mall
bar, first
as a waitress,
then a hostess,
then finally
as a bartender,
with which she
excelled.
being italian,
dark eyed, dark
haired and bosomy
she got it done.
sometimes at two
or three in
the morning i'd
hear a car, or
a truck, or
a motorcycle
dropping her
off in the street
in front of our
narrow brick
duplex. i never
looked out the
window. that part
i didn't want
to know. i didn't
want to own that
memory. and in
the morning,
reeking of smoke,
and beer, and
the cheap cologne
of the men who wanted
her, with her lipstick
smeared, still
in her shiny short
dress and her black
apron, her shoes off,
beneath the coffee
table, she'd
be sound asleep
on the couch, with
seven neatly stacked
piles of coins,
lunch money awaiting
us before we went
off to school.