The Green Bottle
Wine
Drinking
Sadness
Ballad of the nectar
Moon of tinted glass,
how you pierce the throat of night.
The hibiscus trees weep poison.
They weep poison.
In the yard, crows circle
an empty chair where my father sat.
His shadow drinks from red rivers,
rivers that flow nowhere but down.
The crickets know my name.
They scrape it against their legs
while K-9’s urinate on the rosemary leaves,
dry and yellow in morning light.
Three glasses stand like eucalyptus trees.
Three graves of crystal.
My father’s voice shook
like wind-torn leaves.
Like wind-torn leaves.
The moon fills each glass with the nectar,
with memory, with thorns.
Below consciousness, a river flows.
Red river. River of thorns.
River of no return.
Originally published on Medium on 2025-01-06.