ah, my friend, it’s awful, worse
than that — you just get
going good —
one bottle down and
gone —
the poems simmering in your
head
but
halfway between 60 and
70
you pause
before opening the
second bottle —
sometimes
don’t
for after 50 years of
heavy drinking
you might assume
that extra bottle
will set you
babbling in some
rest home
or tender you
a stroke
alone in your
place
the cats chewing at
your flesh
as the morning fog
enters the broken
screen.

one doesn’t even think of
the liver
and if the liver
doesn’t think of 
us, that’s
fine.

but it does seem
the more we drink
the better the words
go.

death doesn’t matter
but the ultimate inconvenience
of near-death is worse than
galling.

I’ll finish the night off
with
beer.