Molly Maguire's Pub

by Christian Reifsteck

 

I could never stand

a misplaced apostrophe,

so I do not buy

the black shirt hanging

from the pub’s tin ceiling

that reads, “Patricks’ a saint

I ain’t.”

I do not wear grammatical errors.

But the boys who pretend to be men

in their black leather biker vests and chain wallets

and tattoos encircling their necks

don’t know any better.

They pretend to be the devil himself—

antithesis of everything holy,

everything Saint Patrick.

I see it in their eyes,

through the smoke clinging to the tin ceiling

and the wrinkled posters of Irish landscapes

plastered to the lime green walls of this little corner bar

squeezed between the close neighborhood houses

surrounded by mountains in a little corner town

that pretends to be Irish in this little spot.

I see the hesitancy in their faces

the uncertainty, the small innocent fear

undetectable under a fifth beer,

invisible behind a beard,

and as subtle as an inappropriate apostrophe

that no one really notices.

Christian Reifsteck’s poems have appeared in various publications, including The Bijou Poetry Review, Vantage Point, and manifest magazine. He currently teaches in central Pennsylvania.