What Doesn’t Stay in Vegas—Murfin Verse

What Doesn’t Stay In Vegas

October 3, 2017

What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay there.

It oozes under the front door

of that little house in Tennessee

leaving a nasty stain in the carpet

that will last generations.

It drips from the empty desk

            in the high school office

            where the phone rings unattended

            next to a famed family photo

            and a jar of M & Ms.

It is tangled in the nets

            of that Alaska trawler

            spilling on the deck

            and splattering those rubber boots.

It has to be wiped from the table

            of that Disneyland café

            by some other harried waitress

            before it spoils some child’s

            special day

            or gets on Snow White’s costume.

It pools by the council’s table

            in a San Diego courtroom

            the empty chair

            unable to represent

            the mother of three.

It cannot be washed from

            the filthy hands

            of every politico

            who took gun pushers’ cash

            and kissed the ass of every

            fetishist wanking himself off

            to violence porn and hero fantasies.

—Patrick Murfin