Memory of the Mint

Memory of the Mint

When I visit the Russell museum
Where Charlie’s paintings hang,
I become ten again, selling the
Great Falls Leader to the cowboys
playing poker, puffing cigars
in Central Avenue’s Mint Bar,
“Waiting for the Chinook”
to thaw their hearts before they
die like the starving antelope
In the smoked-stained Russell
painting hanging crookedly
Above bottles of whiskey, gin and
vodka. Passed out at the end of the
bar an old Blackfoot sloshes
through the snowy mountains
on his painted pony dragging
a deer carcass, dreaming of the thaw.
I can hear my child’s voice calling out
“Leader Fall’s paper, read all about it,
Paper mister?” I hear the curator’s voice,
“Closing time” and like frozen ice in the
warm Chinook wind the memory disappears.