lookin' for words

Skinny Red's
lookin' for a word.
Lookin' for one that's
just right.
Her shirt is too small,
her pants are too short
and she knows I'm watching her,
still searching.

I feel like leaning
way into the evening
and saturating it with whiskey.
I'd like to lean waaaaay in
with my arms wide open,
but there's always something.
A telephone ringing,
a record skipping,
a tray of ice cubes that
aren't quite frozen yet.

Maybe nothing is happening
right now,
and that's really something...
or maybe it's just me
wanting to hurl myself
into tonight
like a cannon ball
but instead I sit here
almost alone
watching skinny Red
search for the right word
out of the six hundred sixteen thousand five hundred or so
words in the English language
while my freezer tries hard to
solidify those cubes of Hollywood tap water
to eventually melt
three at a time in a glass of single malt Scotch.

It's somethin' or it's nothin',
but my money's on somethin'.