A Toast of Blue

                                A Toast of Blue

Twist off

                                and lick the under-

                                side of the cap,

                                mixing the metal taste

                                with the bleeding insincerity

inside your mouth.

                       

Set the bottle down

                                and find that Skip James album

                                you tend to play in the dark.

                                Begin with his voice –

                                that wild, howling scream –

                                and sink in the rhythm

                                of the guitar or piano

                                or his feet pounding the floor.

                                Sip with each lurch

                                of your soul.

Lift the liquid to a drop

                                on your tongue then read

                                the label four times in tune

                                and place it back,

                                clinking the table with its

                                glass serenade breaking you.

                       

Your head slumps

                                chin to table,

                                you view the top

                                through tinted refractions,

                                overturned in its disgrace,

                                its humbled example.

                                To finish the drink

                                your eyes repair

their known motion,

                                aiming the tilting

of the empty

from stomach to mind,

from mind to mouth,

from mouth to glass.

                       

                                And in this present

                                the ancient sounds slow

                                allowing these words,

                                in this place,

                                on this fault,

                                to cry myself true.