Poem by Nathan Graziano
Photo by Cindy Williams
One Day at a Time
What’s not to love about a cliché?
The Drunk will say in his lounge singer’s voice
as the guests at the Mexican restaurant
gather in a scrum around a plate of chicken nachos.
He slams his fourth frozen margarita
through a muscular straw, avoiding the salt.
French-kissing the glass’ rim until he’s huffing
tequila fumes. Meanwhile the handsome waiters
with bronzed-skin and chiseled chins,
shadowy beards and memories of bolo ties
run to him with a new drink before he can slur,
One day was yesterday.
In the evening the Shetland pony piñatas were hung
on meat hooks from The Drunk’s bedroom ceiling
where his looks of longing broke their backs,
spilling sangria like a god’s blood on his only white shirt.
Today starts tomorrow,
The Drunk will say and hoist his glass to the sun,
after torching five weeks of sobriety, with the ease
of Cortez kicking up his feet on an ottoman, raising a brow
and saying, “I might be immortal.” The Drunk’s laugh
lifts on the backs of the desert spirits and his former-self emerges
from the ashes of a burned wagon on the beaten path.
Time is the trap of consciousness,
The Drunk crunches on a corn chip to punctuate
as a pretty girl smiles in Spanish from a table
ablaze by the kitchen entrance. She has Aztec eyes
that call his bluff as the heat reaches his face
and the piñatas’ blood, the sweet sangria, rains
on the one-way street that will lead him back to tomorrow.
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