Because These Drunken Friends Are Loved Poem by R.J. Bevans

Proof we can still love our friends
We can contrast them with that Blue-hued AM.
We might see them dance with others.
We may love the honeyed sweat,
Long time, sweet, and scummy on their faces.

We can ball up our cheeks
And grin mouth giddy.
Smiles and aphasia:
Swimming, stuttered, stagger, contagion of those
Hot breathing friends
Half-slid down tortured couches and chairs;
These limbs, those flung, and their flat for floors, dream mattresses.
Slow-faced and scrambling where jokes for laughter.

Whole flights of the lamp’s light
f-fall then rise partially on
My friend as Clown
m-moist, so warm colors evaporate from
These babies’ whiskey-hot, fevered faces.

And paralyzed right then but still blushing and loved.