Shooty

When she showed us the place,
tiny kitchen,
bedroom: impossibly small,
we knew it was home.

She was thin, and bent, and old.
When she told us to call her Shooty,
in her rough, bartender's voice.
we looked at each other, giggling,
like lovers in a new place often do,
and wondered why.

But one night
while playing cards,
listening to records,
and drinking
she stormed into the room,
her face: a blank canvas.
We turned sheet white.
She took up two shot glasses
of whiskey.
and made them disappear in a blur,
walking out smiling.
And then we knew.