Chandelier-eyed and wearing a bib,
a woman asks me to sign something raunchy

about lips in my book she just bought.
I bet she wouldn’t mind if I wrote

fuck me in saliva up the inside
of her arm. But who would I be

in the morning. She’d wake, wonder
how I got there, like I was a puddle,

something she knocked over in the belly
of the night that should’ve evaporated

by now. Oh, I’ve been down that road before.
In fact, I still have property there. I could

peel her out of that cocktail dress, gamble
in the casino on the goose-bump peninsula

between her breasts. But how could I
get out of a jam like that—all covered

in strawberries, hands pressed against
the lid, head banging on the glass?

The problem with being sober is you can’t
have drunken sex. Instead of blacking out,

reality sets in like frost. I can’t
have my cake and eat it off her ass too.

The world recedes when I’m hungry,
but once I’m fed, it all comes back.