After you drink vodka
Poem 15, June 15
After you drink vodka
After you drink vodka & cranberry, you glow,
you look young, no stress lines, no crow’s feet.
I tell you so & you smile.
The poem in that smile, styled
like daffodils in snow, calling up to greet
sunshine, excites me, I’m stung
with the venom of poetry.
I marvel in the moment. The symmetry
of man & poet emerges, thinking & feeling strung
like laundry along a line, towels, shirts, a sheet,
quicken my pulse. My naked emotions run wild;
fueled by your dissolute & mild,
classic beauty. If I had hoped to be discrete,
you drink vodka & cranberry & I hoe a short row.