This Drink

The patio bar

rages raucous

in our midnight carousings

as expensive friends rise and fall

tidal in their comings and goings

I hold court in the leather booth and

tell tales from my European travels

Misadventures in Paris

Bribes to conductors on Croatian trains

and that one woman from Prague

with the beautiful harelip scar

like a tiny map curling downwards

to soft lips

with a Spanish accent

and promises to write

I draw pictures of her in the air

with outstretched hands

the drink splashing storm

like a tiny bourbon sea

emptying

only to be filled again

by those I hold thrall

And tonight

I am a king

of my drunken court

and Jake's got the next round

as I empty the glass down

to the numbing ice

ache against my grinning teeth

Closing time

as Cheryl flicks the lights

and it's side hugs

with Ubers home

friends off to soft beds

and work in the morning

And I too

East side please

and I can't remember

the driver's name

though he told me twice

and we don't speak a word more

as Los Angeles

with her callous lights

smear past the window

my head against the glass

*

Home now

and 4AM

the moon cruel through

the blind window

pale pane

upon the hot summer wall

Outside somewhere is

the shrill cry

of something dying

I can't place the animal

but it's something small

Its cries out for a moment

and then stops

The drink sweats cold

in my shaking hands

just as I do

rivers down my back

The scotch bites

cheap burn behind my eyes

now squeezed shut

But this one is not

for telling tales

of Croatian trains

or of girls with hairlips

but for silence

But there is no silence

not for that I wish to quiet

and it's not your fault

your brother died

your mother finding him

hanging from

a bathtub curtain rod

two children

thirteen

and ten

and it's not your fault

Dad never saw his own light again

him ever shrinking into his soft chair

watching the TV with the sound off

yet eyes fixed

somewhere beyond

upon his child with the golden hair

running in the October sun

And you don't have to like

the sound of oxygen machines

tolling in their indifferent pings

beside his metal bed

hospice and holidays

the cats curled silent

at his feet

waiting

And this drink

will take

none of this

away

And this is the part

that no one sees

save your ghosts

and the mirror

from which

you now

avert your eyes

and tomorrow

lies far beyond the watchful trees