I'm working coat check at a nightclub.
From where I stand, there is no light.
3 unshaven men wearing white stand
in front of my stand. The guard yells:
GO STRAIGHT, MAKE A LEFT, DOWN THE STEPS
The men wait. They are waiting for friends.
It is too hot for coats. One looks at me and licks his lips.
A prison looks like a college campus from afar.
My coat closet looks like a confessional up-close.
Curtains separate me from penitents. The music of God
(techno) eats ear drums, burrows into the brain, makes it quiet.
GO STRAIGHT, MAKE A LEFT, DOWN THE STEPS
Beat drops, slam shots, drop your coat.
3:35 pm. 6 more hours of the 9.
9-hour shift. Third of the week.
We wear all black in the nightlife.
GO STRAIGHT, MAKE A LEFT, DOWN THE STEPS
Like separate sides of a courtroom or a wedding
there are two sides to the party.
Buying or selling? Making or spending?
We’re dressed in all black so as not to be seen, so as shadows.
We yell:
GO STRAIGHT, MAKE A LEFT, DOWN THE STEPS
Offer a bump, yawing to the right
my crew takes me upstairs.
We take, take, ask for more, and take. I take
them back to middle-earth— coat check.
I take a customer, he doesn’t tip
doesn’t apologize, I anathematize.
In all black, we search his leather jacket and take
the gold watch, unmarked pills, note filled journal.
Night finally falls.
GO STRAIGHT, MAKE A LEFT, DOWN THE STEPS
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury
the warp in the mirror is of our making.
ABOUT:
Grace Patt Biddle’s work has appeared in Snaggletooth Literary Arts Magazine and they are a recipient of the Farnsworth Poetry Prize by Bates College. Currently residing in New York City, she is a Poetry MFA candidate at Columbia University where she works as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate Poetry seminar. Follow @gracetimesthree on social media platforms.
EDITOR'S SONG PAIRING: mid march — long coats
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