Two Years Sober Today

Here's a poem from the new manuscript, published in The Chattahoochee Review long before I became poetry editor:




THIRTY DAYS SOBER

she dreams she’s invited
to a dinner party in Napa,
where mustard flowers
dangle on tender stems,
and wild turkeys amble
close to the road:

the hostess, pretty
as a porcelain doll,
minds a risotto, her slender feet
balanced on the six-inch spikes
her bi-coastal lover,
always due any moment, likes
best poised on his chest,

and their house, perched
like a toy on a sand hill,
looks down on the valley,
has a deck overlooking air,
where guests lean
their loaded whispers
toward one another

as the dreamer
sips a temperamental
’67 Chateau d’Yquem
from Vindel crystal
as delicately blown
and easily shattered
as a marriage, as a redheaded child,
as all the things that matter.