Poem: Absinthe

In my dream, the sought-after delicacy —
much subject to an almost mystical
obsession, the subject of poetry
and paintings – was clear as water
and served in tiny glasses, also clear

and I recognized that taste on the tongue:
tears, all salt and emptiness, somehow suffused
with the heavy perfume of June roses.
They laughed and said I was too primitive
to recognize such pleasures
but I know the taste of tears, I know enough
not to gather them up and drink them down.

Maybe we need to stop wringing them out
and entertaining ourselves with pain, as if
suffering were an aperitif to
stimulate the appetite for something else.
Maybe it makes all that wealth taste better,
the shining treasures you grasp and don’t share.

I know all about the green fairy; I tried
her myself when young in that Prague café,
the American one where expats gathered
over obsidian tables reading
translations of Kafka. I was like that, once.

I didn’t like that wormwood bitterness,
clear and pale. Here’s what you do:
you take it in a spoon, a little bit
mixed with sugar then flick a match. This melts
the sugar and you drop it in. Except
in my case I set the entire table
on fire itself, pale blue flames, and I drank down
the screams and left the absinthe alone. This
tells you all you need to know about me.

I don’t drink anymore, or set random fires.
I stopped trying to be the hunger artist
and the cockroach the char-woman leaves.
I’ve long ago learned the taste of tears, which
appetites they stimulate. I know enough
not to gather them up and drink them down.