POETRY BY MICHELLE BROOKS

WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE

The bathroom attendant asks me when 

my shift begins. In my silver dress, I look

like a shake dancer. Soon, I tell her, giving 

her a dollar for the peppermint she offers me.

I look for my friends, the sounds of the casino,

of luck and loss, surround me. I spot a dwarf 

wearing a beret adorned with glitter riding 

a scooter. He wheels toward me and yells,

“What are you looking at?” I tell him I’m 

waiting for my shift to start, and he softens.

“First day?” he asks. I nod. “Shake it like you

mean it,” he says, rolling away to put quarters

in the Count Chocula slot machine. I find my

friends at the bar ordering expensive cocktails

that appear as if they are on fire, smoke from dry

ice enveloping them until you’re left with vodka

and fruit juice. I take a sip, thinking about how

I could get the same thing for half the price down 

the street but I’m not paying for the drink. You

never pay for just the drink. You pay for the show.

Michelle Brooks has published a collection of poetry, Make Yourself Small, (Backwaters Press), and a novella, Dead Girl, Live Boy, (Storylandia Press). Her poetry collection, Pretty in A Hard Way, will be published by Finishing Line Press in September 2019. A native Texan, she has spent much of her adult life in Detroit.