Kathy McGoldrick
Nemesis Serves at the Watering Hole
A knotty hand with done-up nails
slides the drinks.
Her face is angles,
glass of an old-world wine cup,
her hair dyed jet-black,
dead piled,
umbral clothing gliding
easy and skinny over decades
of smooth scarred-up gropes.
Above the venerable
oiled bar, the dull TV
tickertapes
175 killed,
mostly schoolgirls…
…bombed in Iran.
Her opaque eyes, line-proofed in pencil,
memorize the passive grey of martini man
and the suave suit of sauvignon guy
while she serves,
lodging their puppy-dog tails
and tropes,
tropes and tales.
She’s got their number.
A talking head mouths
… investigating
women, some of whom now
demand justice, and the letters in “Epstein”
echo-flash again on the silent screen.
Now Mr. Gabardine glows a drinky sheen,
admires his own wavy
mirror twist of a smile,
pushes a greedy green across
for service first, which
—a flip out of hubris—
she deftly ignores.
He’s so mad then
that he grabs her hand
hard. She’s old enough,
though, so it’s just that
this time—
no breast, no ass, just
his thumb
at her veiny wrist, which
beats
an orca pulse.
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Kathy McGoldrick received an MFA at the State University of New York at Buffalo decades ago, then for many years raised two daughters, financing that endeavor with a career in social work administration. She has retired, and writes poetry again. Recently, Kathy's poems have been published in Earth's Daughters, Hags on Fire, Gyroscope Review, Oberon, The Comstock Review, Humana Obscura, Sangam (Southern University), and New Millennium (winner of the 2025 America: One Year from Now contest). One of her poems has recently been accepted for publication in NYU’s Washington Square Review.