Two buildings of wine,

two empty bowling pins of dark glass,

one with a skinny metal pyramid
inverted as a cork, one

with smoke of paper rising

from the head like tissue paper from

a gift bag,

contain morsels of drink,

the first say a neck and a half full

and I ask if I can take some, though

I don't ordinarily drink, because

I'm out of the medicine that

interferes and reacts,

at least in theory,

though I've

never felt

much difference anyway,

but why be foolish! Yes

is the answer, of course, and so

off I go with a winter solstice spirit glass


six weeks before midnight mass, feeling
spritely enough one way or another.