DRINKING ALONE

by Dian Sousa

 
A tiger sucks a bone in the cage of a jungle-themed bar,
breathing in the pure chemical air of a Las Vegas casino.
The tiger makes no sound. He doesn’t smell like grass
or heat. I should stab him with an olive fork.
A woman walks by. She is Done-Up-Tight!
Her stilettos, carved from brutalized redwood,
could be used to bring down a bear. If her fingernails
were lashed to the end of a spear she could kill a fox
or a wolf, and how fine that jacket would fit.
The woman scratches on the glass of the tiger’s cage
and purrs that old song, What’s new pussycat?
I should knock that woman down, take her pulse,
ask her two questions about the solar system
and seven about the Pacific Ocean.
I am drinking alone and doomed,
a one woman massacre, but this is as close
as I can get right now to quench my thirst
in our lost communal river.
The screeching parrots hold to a beat here
and every cocktail comes with a potato chip
shaped like an ocelot. I order another Bloody Mary
from the bartender. He is wearing a pith helmet
and a sleepy yellow python as a scarf.
I should set his hat on fire and dangle a rabbit
in front of the python to see if either man or snake
is truly alive. But I forgot how to make fire.
And where would I get a real rabbit?
I look around for a magician,
but the good ones are all invisible.


* * * * *

"Drinking Alone" is from Dian Sousa's book The Marvels Recorded in My Private Closet (Big Yes Press, 2014).

Dian Sousa is the reverend and head mother of The Center for Mystification and Delight. She offers her poems as anthems in the matrifocal revolution. She hopes they will help dismantle the heavy, ugly walls of patriarchy. She has written three books of poems and is at work on a fourth. Her most recent book is The Marvels Recorded In My Private Closet (Big Yes Press, 2014). She is a recipient of a 2019 Luso-American Fellowship to the DISQUIET: Dzanc Books International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal.