Leslie Hodge

At the Cal Neva

Stan rambles through the casino, no clocks, oxygen pumped in. Finally a two-dollar table.
Insurance? asks the dealer. Stan peeks at his hole card, smiles, waves his hand low.

His daughter Layla at the craps table shooting dice, her chips sorted by color.
The stickman sings out, too tall to call! He winks, nudging new dice to her.

Coming out! All the hard ways, working. The stickman raises one eyebrow. 
Layla rolls a four, twenty-two, Little Joe. Says, place six. Place eight. Odds.

In the bar, her sisters Kiki and Joy swing onto the dance floor with sure-footed cowboys.
The tip jar by the singer’s boot is overflowing. Dim lights, thick smoke, and loud, loud music …

What kind of beer do you have? Oh, says the waitress, you’re asking the wrong person.
She swivels through the tables setting down shots and margaritas, idly eavesdropping –   

           That girl singer, she ain’t got a country voice. Yeah?  Yeah, now look at Loretta.
             She can rhyme hard and tired. You know, tard. Coal Miner’s Daughter. Yeah? 

      This place is a dump. I wanna take one of those buses into Reno. I’ll take you, Ma.
        What? I’ll drive you to Reno. If I wanted a drunk to drive me, I’d drive myself. 

                  Hey, why don’t you all come out to West End Beach tomorrow? Where’s that?
                     Donner Lake. Hmm, I think we’re gonna go rafting on the Truckee. Oh. Okay.

 At the table, the boxman raises his chin toward Layla. You’ve got good bone structure.
While his hands casually change chips, his eyes shift to Joy. Joy smiles. Not you.

She’s still rolling? says Kiki. Yeah, at least a half hour, maybe more. The table’s crowded.
Shouts surge louder with each throw. They brought in more chips for the bank. Twice.

Joy sniffs the tobacco stink on her sleeve. Gonna burn these when I get home.
Ask for a Heineken. Better than those cheap watery drinks. Baby needs new shoes.

Finally Layla craps out. She pushes her chips to the boxman, tosses tokes to the dealers.
They nod, tap the chip on the table. The pit boss says have a good night, ladies.

Cooling down with a longneck, Layla sits with Stan in the bar. The band’s on break.
A young man drifts toward them, tentative, polite. Are you going to shoot again?

Kiki and Joy enter laughing, stepping over the line separating Nevada and California. 
Through the open window flows the scent of sugar pines. No, Layla says. This is enough.

Leslie Hodge lives in San Diego. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Sisyphus, Spank the Carp, The Main Street Rag, and The Orchards Poetry Journal.  Leslie writes poems to try to make sense of her life in a way that resonates with others.