Staged Right

I like it comes first, I
try to feel shocked. No more a
dependent nor child, the truth is, I'm
an adult with a drink at a bar, my
free will invites me. On me
I hear him say. I feel his
fingers, my bicep squeezed. Next
emotion fresh out of the
limbic Crash goes the glass into the bar
well swells contentedly, contracts
resentfully, a regular pulse, it
splays his fingers loose, the remaining
pressure only to my shoulder, no capture like
before, he chatters on as caged
parrots do once they yield. Who
ricochets flash through the scrum
are you stools clear on both
sides putting your hands on? Hands rise
his from me first, others toward
him, partway. He & I hold our
ground, focused on the
roughhousing an apron comes, scowl-browed
bartender our expulsion bound. I
spit hard (benny from my
brothers), beer-fed eructation, my
mouth still pursed, shoulder bag to hip,
whiskey cross-eyed, Desolation Valley in my
short-term future. I'm
such a proto-mock Penelope
toe-tapping, sequin-bowtied, no
apocryphal Odysseus back, posturing
danger-scripter, semi-tanked.
Curtseying strangers clear a path, I
zag out blinking, alone so long the
taste of violence rushes me, then no
nothing beyond the gap.
No applause.