January 21, 2010 | 3:19 p.m.
last call, sick of it all.

ice melts in the hot gut of his whiskey glass.
he slips
on the thinnest pinch of it,
deep
into a time i cannot reach;

where the boys bet bad hands in bars until their knuckles break,
it’s forever three am and last call never comes
for the locals who have been baptized by the name of their drink
and forget the sound of their own homegrown name
as panic pushes it past the parting lips of whoever
is shaking them awake.