You can mix almost anything
With alcohol, sugar & lemon, branch &

Honey, cream & the cat that got it, sweat & the breath
Autonomic, the lungs as sponges, the flowers

That accompany the dead & cannot help
But push back up through the phantom soil to

Wild the surface again in time—light, & what it does
To us—too much & not enough, love, you

Can miss almost anything with alcohol, backyard
Solace & any hour the early morning has

On offer, my favorite ghost & her favorite cliché
Of making the front door swing slowly open by itself

At exactly the pace my love would enter
A room if it were alive & visible &

Invited. All apologies begin
In condensation & end in the sweep

Of a bar rag. On our knees we have
The same map of scars, the same lit drive

To belong to a local conspiracy. None of us is
Famous yet. Only a handful so far haven’t made it

At all. What’s your poison, says the body,
The darkened window, the godswell that moves

Through the room like the boy who’s built
Wings out of open matchbooks & aims straight

For the sun. At night you can mix up
Almost anyone with their shadow, make up

Almost any cocktail of salt & slap & grain &
Give it a name, the one thing they won’t

Forget, their shadow passed out flat
On the floor beneath them. Light, &

What it does to us. Everyone at every age convinced
The music this year is theirs alone.