#chardonnay
She told me over dinner one evening
that I should switch to white wine—
less tannins and calories, she claimed.
I smiled and shook my head,
a vintage cabernet stubbornly clinging
to my bleached white teeth.
The next day I found a couple bottles
of chardonnay chilled in the fridge,
a note tethered to one’s neck:
Drink Me!
I did not.
Four months later,
we signed divorce papers;
she packed her things and left.
I drank the chardonnay that last night,
dizzied by the herringbone pattern
of the old parquet floor, and wondered
what would happen if I ate our frozen cake top.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 8:13 PM UTC
you drank it all.
alone.
even though there's nothing left
in the bottle,
it is you that feels empty,
transparent,
frail,
like an eggshell that your mother found
in the chicken that your father killed,
that didn't have the chance of the frying pan at least.
you drank it all.
alone.
no Juliet around,
no Shakespeare
no talent,
no tale.
you drank it all.
alone.
no strippers,
no angels,
no thieves!
you drank it all.
some may call it
messianic delusion syndrome,
but I call it..
cheap Chardonnay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbz9rIxZJBw
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 5:23 PM UTC
She warns herself
to cork the wine tangling
up all her breaths.
She doesn't want to drown,
she doesn't want to guess.
But she does,
she does.
She realizes,
nauseous, breathless,
that she's stopped looking for stars
in the sky,
but has begun to search for them
in wine glasses and
a boy's eyes.
She desperately doesn't want to. Desperately.
But she does,
she does.
Her mouth is smeared with
straw-gold honesty
because in the morning
it'll be crimson again -
a scarlet as sharp as a
poison dart.
So right now, she enjoys the pale golden.
Fizzing from her mouth and
coursing through her shaking hands and
enveloping her and the lost boy beside her
like a red and blue coat that they can't shake off.
She wants to say:
This is the winter of our denial.
Of our everything and anything and whatever it is,
this thing we can't name.
But she doesn't,
she doesn't.
The Chardonnay isn't
golden enough for that.
All it can gurgle out is:
Don't do it, don't do it.
It'll mean something.
And she listens,
she listens.
She walks back out into the cold night
because she must.
And she collapses into herself
like stars and galaxies do, don't they?
In the morning, she'll paint some false sunshine
onto her face again.
And pretend she isn't bruised all over,
all red and blue,
golden and crimson.
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 8:08 AM UTC
After 6 PM,
four glasses of Chardonnay;
Jekyll turns to Hyde.
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 12:07 AM UTC