I remember the shelf of bottles, lit from behind like valuables, serious, raised.
I was a vessel. I was meant to be filled. The bartender poured.
Around and behind us doors opened to the sounds of cars, phones went off,
girls laughed like loose change. The light went into the glass.
I remember its fit in my palm, its weight a magnet.
I thought of geometry: the fulcrum (elbow), the points (glass, mouth), the path.
My need was tidy like a law.
My life was portable: it could be left.
The bartender receded down the zinc. Everything was a train moving away.
The meniscus clung, a silk slip. It broke at my lips, a moon in waves.
The cornfield flamed in my throat. The cask charred.
It tasted of revelation, and there was no more memory, nearly
(playing cards, doorway, taxi, key),
until morning, when the light had left me.
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