Late at night the home
is dark and quiet,
and the bottle drinks me
two shades redder.
It feels like Christmas Eve tonight.
My thoughts suspend
themselves on
a single memory:
Christmas Eve
some seven years ago.
My best friend and I,
we got together—
couldn’t say why exactly—
at his folk’s home.
Well, his mother’s,
and she wasn’t a big drinker.
After she went to bed,
my friend and I
got into the liquor cabinet,
untouched in years.
Couldn’t believe our eyes!
Polished off the Glenlivet,
laughed hilariously at nothing
in particular,
and swam into the Baileys.
Had cheap beers,
Remarked on passing time
and lost loves. Sat there
in his mother’s kitchen
talking just like that.
Into the night
in our perfectly youthful,
drunken state.
It is not Christmas eve.
Not at all.
Tonight is October and I am
older now,
forgetting to remember that.
—N.A.
Mouth Thorn 