The Glass
by Michael Miller
Whose hand it was
that pushed the wine glass in
we never allowed ourselves to know.
A simple pull of the doorknob
would have given a face
to the thin white-haired wrist,
the spider-leg fingers that nudged open a crack
to our upstairs bedroom
each Fourth of July
and slipped in the dark brimming glass
while the voices downstairs
slowed with toasts and time.
Prudent enough, we could have listened
for which voice rejoined them
after the hand disappeared,
but awake on our sleeping bags
and high on the breeze through the window,
we spun tales about the stranger —
the shadowy drifter like the scarecrow
that hung on the neighbors’ porch
and turned on our whims
to the hitchhiker or the man from Jupiter.
For the three of us,
a single glass sufficed.
None of us would drop our guard
to let a grimace show,
to hint that the bitter taste, the bite of alcohol
made us long for the sweet and soft again.
We slept those nights conceding
that the wine was wiser than us,
that our tongues would grow into it
like our bodies would grow
into our brothers’ coats.
For the moment, holding our drink,
we had captured a speck more of that world.
The pine cones stocked in our makeshift forts
would split the air like real grenades.
The football, thrown as high as we could,
would spiral perfectly against the sun.
*First published in Connotation Press (2013) and The First Thing Mastered (Tebot Bach, 2013)
Michael Miller is the co-founder of Moon Tide Press, the author of five books of poetry, and a former entertainment and community news journalist for the Los Angeles Times. He currently teaches English and coordinates the visiting-author program at St. Cyril of Jerusalem School in Encino, California. You may read more about him and visit his blog at www.michaelmillerpoet.com.
