A Beer On Your Front Porch Poem by Anthony Parker

You were back in town on
my mother's birthday. Half
drunk, I walked to your
house, stumbling down the street.
I'd spent the night drowning passion
in glass after glass, dousing
thoughts of the ballet our
bodies had mimed.

This night is not mine.
My body only prowls through it,
breathing moth-shaped women and
you-the heiress of naked dreams.
Another night wading in bottles and cans,
ancient wars between Trojans
and Greeks mingling with daydreams
of your hands sifting through Pacific
waves, both lost.

Summer nights in June
are the times when theoretical
angels are born. I
slither between the stars
among these strange angels
to your door. Wingless,
I came to hear you breathe.

The bottle carried in my pocket
was cold against my thigh-
the restless empire of my body
stood at your door. Even in
this state I couldn't knock.
I sat and drank, my discipline
in tatters mind and fingers at their
most sober could not decipher.

Drinking and love,
two timeless arts I've mastered,
sometimes on the same night.
The night of my mother's party
love failed me-that is why I
left the bottle there.