Though their mouths don’t move, their brows unfurl, raise, and become impressed.
I fight myself awake. Raise my weapon.Turn the page. Think about the lines
that never made it out from of the wastebasket. The tin filled with fists, declarations
of war, and key-changes. However, tonight is for the victors. Nimble and blithe lyric and line.
At the podium, I am brave in a bottle filled with the tickle of Tanqueray like a sliver of gimlet-
moon lying lithe in lime-ice and cheap green glass. Long after the birds use their songs
as pillows, but longer before the last trill of the constellations, we will be off into the remnants
of night and city to celebrate the words we have applauded and long forgotten.