from Obsolete Cocktails

1. RUSTY NAIL

An old man's drink
in an old man's hand
stiff with scotch and

Drambuie, amber glower
culled from what's left
after gut-rot scotch

and sweetened to tolerable.
Hangover appeased,
his hand should relax

its clench on the glass
but doesn't. See how
crooked my fingers got,

like they never stopped
working? And corroded,
maybe tossed in the grass,

left there too long, as if
once driven in bent, 'taint
worth hammering straight.

2. PINK LADY

She orders her gin as if it were a hat,
sawdust were wall-to-wall fresh-vacuumed plush
and Red behind the bar, a milliner.

He shakes the cocktail, beefy forearms raised,
two fat pincushions bleeding flesh-tone freckles,
and pours the pink foam up to the elegant rim

where the broken imprint of yesterday's lipstick
hangs tough, not quite washed out, whispering
of former shades: Palace Pink, Passionberry Stain,

Torrid Rose. Things fade. Vivid things fade
the most. Upstairs the washed-up neon sign
keeps spelling, spelling, spelling SRO.

3. OLD FASHIONED

Muddling is a lost art, or losing one,
I should say. Pestle, mortar, proportions
of fruit to bitters, sugar to spritz,
These young ones are hired for their looks
while what gets lost, I ask you?

It's like that bread they don't know
how to make anymore, just its name
and the fact that it existed. Old
Fashioned, sure. Look at that guy:
carnation boutonniere, fedora.

Comes in every Friday looking sharp,
alone, and who knows what he knows?
He might have been the president
of some company, or a scientist, or kid
at Wrigley Field when Babe called

his shot, which is where I grew up,
Chicago, and the only A I ever got
in school was 7th grade, Life Science,
Mrs.Hoffmeyer said it was my gift.

4. BRANDY STINGER

You young fellows wouldn't know where to begin
with all the strappy contraptions trussing up us old birds.
Girdles! Lord, where do you buy those catastrophizing things anymore!
Back then courtships were long, honeybunch; they had to be
just to figure out the clothes, not to mention getting them off. Yes,
I'll have one more and that's it. But at least you knew how to dress
then, and which aisle was lingerie and which was men's briefs!
I stopped trying to shop in 1975, when my husband died. Now, child,
it's too confusing. You can't tell a lawyer from a rap star.
Just look at the shoes the girls wear! Dead weights! Back in Texas
we used to tie things like those to sacks of doomed puppies, why,
every time I see such shoes I think the poor girl's liable to drown.
Though I do confess, the ones we wore may have been a little unkind,
expecting your foot to assume a triangular formation to which it did not naturally incline,
but they got you where you wanted to go - married,
however unstably, but secure, knowing you'd both totter on.
Alright one more, and that's final. I don't envy you
your loose fits, your quick change.