of cherry wine,
and yellow tooth grin are penciled
in lines, and a wagging tongue
like a puppy's tail about to wail

from a mouth
that's swallowed back
**** and confusion to paint
an illusion of blithe. Cloaking lugubrious

eyes in dark shadow and spider
legs and weeping dregs from the bottom
of limpid bottles. This models a portrait of

a woman in hegemony. Not a woman
battling an enemy. A woman calling the shots,
not drinking them with a wedge of lime
and line of rhyme like withered roses on a stem.