Crossroads by Jason Braun
My mother was a barmaid,
I grew up through the beer salt,
broken Pabst bottles, and the splinters
from pool cues that cracked
Curley’s skull and sent two men to Menard.
A cave full of shadows and men stoned,
some still stalagmites while the others,
thick-bearded wolves, prey on packs of floozies,
or bait the preacher’s boy, “He’s a pansy.”
Between the pickled eggs sent and deer meat,
country and blues that cracked from busted juke box,
the smash-clink of whiskey backed with beer,
I knew somehow a man must be more than this-
a heart-sick beast that stands upright to piss.
BIO
Jason Braun edits Sou’wester, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s national literary magazine. He also hosts “Literature for the Halibut” which is a weekly hour-long literary radio program on 88.1 KDHX in St. Louis. He has edited an online anthology of poets influenced by Beat, Slam, and Black Arts Movements called The Fusion at BigBridge.org. He has published poetry in Drumvoices Revue, and was chosen twice by River Styx for their Hungry Young Poets Series. He has released music as “Jason and the Beast”.