- In the Drink
for Hart Crane
Ankles crossedat the copper faucet
he reclines,couched in a white rind
of porcelain,a bottle floating serenely
in the filmy waterabove his belly.
Air and amber refract;a sinking physic
of steam, of whiskey,soothes
while beyond the blindsthe bridge looms,
hazards a tensileconnection
between stone,scuttled need,
and eternal actsof suspension. [End Page 38]
Cate McLaughlin is in the second year of an MFA program at Syracuse University. Her chapbook, The Year of Black Coffee (2008), was published by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. When she can, she lives and writes in western Massachusetts.