Martini

I imagine
this crisp sting, cold
and tingling like
tiny bells bobbing
merrily at a horse’s
throat, his steaming
nostrils flared
wide and stiff
as he plunges
through thick snow
bunched in gutters,
slithering Sahara smooth
across the flat expanse
of streets.

It should go icy
all the way down,
hit my stomach
with an atomic
bloom,
the slow unfolding
of warmed clouds,
vast and silent
as seen in Technicolor.

I suppose the olive
will tie the bow,
make it pretty and sweet.
It’ll be bitter, a twinge
of salt, a pulp-burst
of oil, gritty, aggressive.
The pimiento, slimy on my
tongue, will dissolve
on the roof of my mouth,
gin-soaked and sour.
The olive will go down well
with the last swish of liquor,
like sun shafts shoot
through rainstorms, uninvited,
so welcome.

I believe it will
lull me drunk
softer than any other:
Amaretto Sour, Boone’s Farm,
Beam ‘n’ Coke, Bud Lite.
A drink with its very own glass,
class, a cock of the brow,
pinkies skyward in salute
to a Gentleman’s Drink,
not the cloudy whiskey
acrid and stinking
like some sweating animal
chased deep into the woods,
breath quick and screamy, its vision
blurred like a dream almost
forgotten as it runs,
muscles tight, lined with acid.
It hears the brutal crash
of dogs and men,
blind with thirst,
blundering, mad, helpless
against nature.

It will not be like that.
It will taste like daisies
and bee wings,
not the dark smoke
of a rifle discharged
again and
again.