Virgin in a Bar

Boys and girls
clinking steins
from the communal
pitcher of Budweiser
in the smoky taproom
as Mick Jagger jived on
about Puerto Rican girls
when Cecilia asked,
if she could blow
in my ear. I hesitated.
A beat too long.
As if the waxy
build up would melt
with lava running
down my cheek
like the shame
of tears being
found out in front
of casual friendships,
far too fragile,
that I didn’t know
a damn thing
about what goes
where with a woman.

Tony Pena was formerly 2017-2018 Poet Laureate for the city of Beacon, New York. The words have flowed intermittently over the years like a temperamental river with several poems rescued in the flood waters over time but most recently by The Erozine and the Rye Whiskey Review with Best of the Net nominations in 2019. A volume of poetry and flash fiction, “Blood and Beats and Rock n Roll,” is available at Amazon. A chapbook of poetry, “Opening night in Gehenna,” is available from author.