Harm's Way: Poems

Juleps

Juleps A few days before her forty-sixth birthday, all my mother wants is to sip mint juleps and sit on the porch. She doesn’t know what it is about this drink except regret, never having tasted mint swirling in bourbon, so I break the ice with a quick twist of tray, muddle leaves and jigger whiskey, but there’s only so much sugar— not enough for more than two drinks, not enough to cover coming out to my mother. How much of this is useless subterfuge? Mint doesn’t hide the taste of Jim Beam any better than I hide myself as we raise our glasses in a toast to the sweet sting of age, to the burn of julep in the back of our throats, to the things we think and the things we say aloud.  ...