Thursday, August 4, 2011
White Vinegar
Your handsome brain
believes her power
is hand-fasted to myth.
But I have seen
her clear spirit
slip through an urn
and spill into a flask
cleaning oil
and soiled grains
of coffee,
lending incentive
to the slow pulse,
the stale scent.
I have let her preserve
the taste of herring
sealed with sliced onion
and apple in a salad jar,
maybe even heard
the gold finch
and oriole sing
high soprano
because some god
distilled her essence
through the air --
like two thousand
years before
when Pompeians
painted those birds
on their villa wall.
And now as you sleep
in a southern hotel,
I sip vodka
lemonade on ice, mingled
with sprigs of mint.
The martini glass
leaves a water stain
on our table --
I will need
her persistence
to reclaim its wood
and rub off the loneliness
until you return.
The front gate is unlatched.
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