LANDSCAPE OF TEQUILA WITH WOMB AND BOSSA NOVA
By Megan Denton Ray
I am a goddess on tequila. I climb and climb into the crotch
of a willow tree, wearing my wingtip oxfords
lace chemise and topaz jewelry —
long beads draped and clinking. A collision
of teetering orange planets. Listen, the whole town knows.
I tempt sailors and commercial airplane pilots.
My mouth is an empty bottle
on a man’s neck — surely
this is how a lady behaves. Sure, some ladies study Latin
or home economics — picket fences. The rest of us
feel the glow of it in our chests: tequila
forgetting the children now
the apron now
the vacuum and crinoline now
the tributaries our mothers were. I’ve gathered them
like talismans. I let them twitch in my lap.
I add lime and salt and bossa nova.
I stand on the big moth’s papery wings
and float down an alley
at sunset. I tap into the great belly
of a late-August night, dipping into it
for milk. My bones are strong now
14 karat instruments — flutes
and pipes and swords. These knees
have secrets saddled with eighty-eight
blue stitches, stronger than clobber
and shellac. This drink is the bright knife
of my body. I feel the spice of it
in my shins, the fizzy song of it
tucked into my cheek. Listen, let us
hiss. Let us have her: the mother of twinge.
Megan Denton Ray is the author of Mustard, Milk, and Gin (Hub City Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and holds an MFA from Purdue University. Her work has appeared recently or will soon in POETRY, The Sun, Salt Hill Journal, The Adroit Journal, Passages North, and elsewhere. She currently lives and teaches in Tennessee.
