When I Realized I Couldn’t Make More

by R. S. Mengert

I stayed in Las Vegas until my hair turned gray
looking for my innocence
but lost my innocence on the Circus Circus
midway I drove four hours L.A. to Las Vegas to try to get it back
I must have been about seven or eight at the time
I lost my innocence when my brother lost his mind
shooting marbles for keeps in an alley behind the docks in
San Pedro
I lost my innocence cruising Harbor Boulevard with my brother
and refused to pick up hookers
in my mother’s small apartment by the pawn shop
I must have been about seven or eight at the time
when the girl from the gated cul-de-sac up the street
came an hour late to my retirement party
and said that she detested cheap wine
I was about seven or eight at the time my mother was my father
my father was my grandfather and my brother was my only friend
we ate frozen pizza we drank wine I stole from Pick ‘n Save
in my mother’s small apartment in Westminster by the pawn
shop
I lost my innocence eating slices at the Westminster Mall hung
over
the next day, a smuggled flask of wine, the perfect slice slightly
singed
on the bottom Boston style of the embryonic
birthplace of my mother and the democratic dream I never knew
where
I knew I’d find the lights of Vegas and my lost innocence
waiting, I knew I’d find more wine waiting
to find home, waiting in the starless dark
for the Santa Ana Winds, the democratic dream,
the wine.  I lost my innocence when I realized
I couldn’t make more from the Pacific seawater.