Unhoused Woman Encounters Micropenis Energy Outside the Golden Nugget

Another Las Vegas poem!?

I know, I know, I know…another poem about Las Vegas? If you’re following closely (hi Mom!), you know that I posted a poem about Las Vegas last week. As I also mentioned in that post, I traveled to Las Vegas several times for NAB (National Association of Broadcasters conference and exposition). While I was there, I had a great deal of uninterrupted downtime. I walked to neighborhood bookstores, ate at delicious vegan restaurants, swam in the municipal pool, photographed street art, and explored the Mob Museum (recommended!)

I also ran. I love running whenever I travel. It helps you experience the city/town/countryside where you are, in a way that is impossible by train, bus, or rental car. One early evening, around twilight, while I was staying at my favorite Vegas hotel, the El Cortez, I went out for a run. In the area of Vegas I was staying (North Las Vegas/Old Strip/Fremont Street), I ran past a charming young man, barely old enough to drink, who was extremely belligerent and screaming at the top of his lungs at a very old, decrepit unhoused woman. I only caught a few blasphemous words, and the pained expression on the woman’s tan, wrinkled face, as the idiot boy’s girlfriend stared awkwardly from the street corner. My initial instinct was to stop and give the kid a chewing out, “respect your elders!” or some such slop. But, I freely admit, I chickened out. I kept on running, fully expecting (hoping) that someone in the crowd surrounding them would call the police.

This was years ago now, and I still feel guilt and regret for not stopping and helping the poor woman, so I did—well, not the next best thing, but a thing much farther down the list of next best things. I wrote a poem about it.

Unhoused Woman Encounters Micropenis Energy Outside the Golden Nugget


The sun has yet to set and
here you are, slurring your words.
Your girlfriend is too, but
she is savvy enough
to distance herself from you.
She paces half a block away,

sweaty, arms crossed.
She wanders near and calls
your name, Tad. Why don’t you
leave her be, Tad? Sleep it off,
Tad. Let’s bang it out, Tad.
(Better yet, don’t, Tad.) What

daggers did this dirty-faced,
tattered-trousered grandmother
sling, that sliced you so, Tad?
Was it her cabbage-scented
perfume which seduced you
to bray—swine-like—into

the cheeks of this “fucking HAG”?
You tower above her, your
fatback moist, your jowls pink
from lack of air to your
middling brain, veins in your neck
and hamhocks bulging. Did she

take your last twenty bucks at
the Blackjack table? Did she
refill all your empties
at the casino bar? Did she
run away with the butcher
when you were six? (And what if

she did? If your dad was
the bore that you are, Tad, I
would too.) And what’s wrong with
these passers-by, who just pass by
you, casting their gaze aside—
myself included?

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This image of the Golden Nugget Casino and Hotel was originally posted to Flickr by Theresa Boardman in 2008.

April is National Poetry Month! I aim to post a poem each weekday in celebration of the form. Some old, some new, some published, some never-before-seen.