shillelagh law (joneal) wrote, @ 2007-10-18 12:46:00

Drinking to remember
“There’s no getting those years back.”

He said this after a long swig of Black Bush
and for a moment I saw in his eyes
a glimpse of an unblemished childhood
where the years had yet to etch
his present weathered patina
with their acidic fingers touch.

Crutch-less, a boy running
through dandelion jungles
and a wilderness of endless possibilities
sans the crippling effect
of beatings-

the paternal swung belt buckle,
lashing of multiple callous wives
or the gun butt of some
government’s definition of enemy.

We drank for hours and played Memory
with overturned desires,
shuffled them face down
and flipped them to prove our mettle,
until they were as mixed up as us.

“You’ve got to lance the puss, not let it settle.”

I said after a particularly disturbing snippet
showed itself on the table.

He slammed the shot glass down
and the sound echoed in my recollections
like the first time I'd fired a deer-rifle
some long ago, lonely dawn.

“There’s no goddamn time machines.”

But my only reply was to tap
the half empty bottle of Protestant whiskey
and think to myself that they’d gotten
that old adage about drinking to forget

all wrong

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