Ice Water Poem by Scott Minar

"People in Hell want ice water too, "
My father used to say.
A few of us down here
Standing around asking about it.

The waiter brings his mirrored platter
and a string of ice cubes slides off its edges
before dropping off to nowhere.
Adonis, the poet,

hasn't lost a step, catching these fallen things
in his glass of aniseed liquor
without spilling a drop.
People in hell want a few things

I say. Like air conditioners and
a clean blanket after sweating through the night.
It's warm down here near the engines
and fly warrens, a desert growing

around us and not enough water
to fill a single tray. And the poet,
if he perspires no one sees. Which is it today,
tears or evaporation, or both?

Just before his death his body
felt a chill all around him,
a respite from words and conclusions,
both hands full... and cold.