The Ballad Of Leander Trueblood Poem by Chris Tusa

With arms the size of ham hocks,
teeth clenching a dead cigar,
he could punch a smile clean out a man’s head,
spook the chords out a guitar.

He’d sell his soul to the devil for a buck,
put his own mama in hock,
steal your wife with a smile mean as dirt,
pick her heart like a lock.

Most nights he spent at the Rainbeaux Lounge,
drunk up to his eyes on gin,
bumming beers and chain-smoking cheap cigars
with that same filthy grin.

On karaoke nights he hogged the mic,
convinced he could sing the stars out the sky.
He kept a pair of brass knuckles in his hip pocket,
a pewter flask of Spanish Fly.

One summer, he had a fling with the mayor’s wife,
a freckled redhead named Flora Jean.
Now, his name is a whisper, quiet as the bullet
that screamed through his spleen.