Zzzzz
Zzzzz

               -Zzzzz
               Zzzzz

Zz...
(???)
Zoe?

               -Zzzzz
               Zzzzz

Zoe??

               -Zzzzz
               Zzzzz

ZOE!!!

               -Zz...!
               Zane?

'Za,
Zucchini,
Zinfandel?

               -Zzzzz

Zoe!

               -Zz...
               Zane?!

'Za,
Zucchini,
Zinfandel?

               -Zaxby's
               Zalad

Zaxby's
Zalad?

               -Zzzzz
               Zzzzz

ZOE!

               -Zz...!
               Zane?!

Zaxby's
Zalad???

               (???)

Zoe,
Zaxby's
Zalad?

               -'Za,
               Zucchini,
               Zinfandel

Zzzzz
Zzzzz

               -Zane?


© 2020 by Mark Toney. All rights reserved.

and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference

Pinot this and pinot that
This young Grenache is a trifle flat
Better to try and get along
With a slightly older Sauvignon

I sometimes get a trifle low
When dabbling in a cheap Merlot
And so to scare the blues away
Will sip a spendy Chardonnay

But to avoid real ennui
Drink super Oregon Pinot Gris
And let’s be quite awfully frank
That’s much better than Chenin Blanc

But while you sort out your Pinot
Give a break to Grignolino
It’s good, but not the same as
A bold and cheeky Oz Shiraz

And if you want to go very far
Don’t ignore local Pinot Noir
It always sells well on the block
And I wonder who likes Marechal Foch

As I was supping a cute Barbera
At a certain State affaira
Things got quickly very highbrow
When someone mentioned Muller Thurgau

It is no lack of vinous respect
That makes us scorn the best Malbec
And can you find me a single fan
Of that very odd vine, Carignan?

If one must go to a grapey hell
There’s good company in Zinfandel
But if we really must go
Could we have some Nebbiolo?

In the end we all agree
Any wine is better free
But if not free we’ll surely call
Any wine beats none at all!

a waking so timeless,
where we lose our fingernails
as we claw each other
and rain; the rain glittering
along it's fundament, glittering
along our... let's just say
that there is a universe of
silver linings in the eaves and a
scent of leaves in this silence,
this dust is ours only
we dig deep
into golden phrases,
while finding screaming skin
breaking slowly into air,
an electrocution
focused on our loves;
we dig deep
into pits of our
broken hearts
surprised
we are so apart somehow
there is an electricity
that pulls the dust back,
together.
the static,
the floor was a blanket
your smile, a fire escape
the static in the air
the wine glasses neglected,

we drank from the bottle

I slipped into the walk-in cooler
to escape the kitchen heat for a few
minutes. I sat beneath a wine rack
holding up a chardonnay chandelier
with zinfandel bulbs. I'd swear
I was at the Ritz if it weren't for
a lemon box slowly collapsing
beneath my weight. The motor
to my right churned out frigid air
like a 43rd floor air conditioner
in a luxury suite with fresh fruit rolled
in on cardboard carts. Everything
was buffet style and there were no lines,
just the painful thought that I'd have
to leave paradise soon.

I will make a fangle of mechanisms,
a creature with iron snouts
and concrete aortas.

Its fevered howl will wake the duplexes
perched on sloped land,
built from collected tins and bottle caps.

Boys sooted in grief will balk like ravens,
chew sweet dip, and spit,
but never reach the foreman’s gate.

They’ll crave a tavern with antlers as chandeliers
where a black flame burns
on the brim of a zinfandel.

But tonight they’ll gristle through streets
to a stale room
where fluorescent lights blanch a young widow’s skin.

Basic cable ministries will flick and dim
in the homes of the wigged ladies who wait for them—
the howl keeps them

breathless, each of them fearing
the slow swallow from a snake’s mouth
to its furnace.

Dinner is Served*

Continuous hunger
unsatisfied
and faltered
Feed the weak
and eat them young
Makes a simplicity
of having to
house them
or to let them run*


Baby calf, born to be
brazen with a side of pilaf

Seared over open flame
tenderly exquisite

Make no matter
of an empty life

Just too satisfying
to a tempered pallet

To think of where and how
this dish came to be

Ending a wee
youngling's life

Served best with
a chilled blush zinfandel
or an aged red chianti

White and/or red
make up life of blood
and life in continuation

My preteen years were
filled with white zinfandel
dreams and a collage
of wood panelling.

Broken thoughts become
ninety proof lies; drink-
don't think.

Diet Coke cans filled
with wine, hiding from
myself but mostly from
my grandmother

I wanted to conceal my
role as the family ****-up
for as long as possible
but then
I hit a wall.

Drinking is a constant love affair,
I keep coming back like a battered wife
because I can't get a grip on my
battered life.

Living for the burn
that spread its legs all
the way down my throat.

You're going to die, they say.
Maybe one day,
I'll believe them.