9.24.2011

Uncorked

We fucked like starving strangers
while both still half asleep
by accident last week
in the 2 am darkness
of our hollowed out apartment.
Even in bitter dreamscapes
we somehow knew the way.

The following day
I plumbed for the rich
in a county I'll never call home
while she cracked the bottle of white
I had in the fridge
like some sort of sad reverse date
or perhaps a salve to stop the heartache
of over two years down the tubes.
Either way I couldn't blame her
when I saw the cork protruding
next to the crisper later that evening.
A ten-dollar bottle of grapes
is the least a man can do
for a woman whose fire forged him.

Last night my gut was warmed
when I saw the familiar bag
with our liquor store's logo on it.
There it was, replaced
and doubled:
two bottles of wine--
white, my favorite.
I lifted one up off the counter.
The same as the one
she'd polished off alone.
A payment. A replenishing.
A tithing of the damned.
The second one felt heavier
in my hands as I read the label
and laughed. A company called
Clean Slate from some dry shithole
of a California valley.
An apology. A promise.
A rewinding of the clock.
I put them both in the wine rack
and headed off to bed
not sure if we'd meet
in our sleep again
like lovers out of time.

"Where's the other bottle?"
I asked today, oddly frantic
after coming home from work
and noticing the new brand was gone.
"I brought it to Becky's," she said
barely glancing up from her book.
"We drank some of her stock
the other night, figured I'd replace it."
So much for the clean slate.
I read the title in her hands.
'A Farewell to Arms' by Hemingway.
So much for a lot of things.
"Is that my book?" I asked
already knowing the answer.
"Yes," she replied in that tone of hers
that promised not to bend the pages
break the spine, or underline anything
in case it should be more profound
than something my highlighter missed.

I went and ran the shower.
The hot takes a long time to rise
way up here on the third floor.
It's a sad thing, a break-up;
but sometimes it's as needed
as that magic on the rocks.

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