Eight Ball

By Claudia Emerson

It was fifty cents a game
          beneath exhausted ceiling fans,
the smoke’s old spiral. Hooded lights
          burned distant, dull. I was tired, but you
insisted on one more, so I chalked
          the cue—the bored blue—broke, scratched.
It was always possible
          for you to run the table, leave me
nothing. But I recall the easy
          shot you missed, and then the way
we both studied, circling—keeping
          what you had left me between us.