(no subject)

[apiphile]

when we go drinking

They come, man-woman, neither-both, with their hags
all made-up for the party
and a fat old man we at first
take to be their dad;
a little later append the -dy,
sheepishly certain of a different dynamic
never quite certain of anything except that
they are the one in charge of the fun.

It's hard to say what they bring,
precisely, except these wild women in their glad-rags
a little leopard-print, a little eyeliner,
a little suicidal incaution,
and a thick rich soil of inspiration,
throwing shoots around our dancing ankles and giving us
a lot of uncivilised ideas.

Their companion is round and white-haired,
bare-bellied, bear-shouldered, naked
to the waist, and wasted from the outset;
his laugh rolls out of him along with his gut,
and you wrack yourself with the same peals
on the back-swig from the same cup,
because why not: make an ass of yourself.

It's time to dance until the sun comes up,
goes down again like a gutter child and back up,
third time's the charm: a harmless incantation against good behaviour,
prudery and long life.
You see that star, just born tonight?
It'll burn out before you're fifty,
says the director of the revels,
but God, you tell them:
what an uncompromising light.