quotidian

THE LOVE SHOP

Like most things, it requires robots.
We extract it from designated
donors at the moment of legal death,
but it's so acutely volatile
that only a machine hand can
draw it out, clean and uncurdled.
The good stuff smells stringent,
slightly oaky, with a note of pineapple
or pear. A spoiled batch has that
piss and vinegar smell of methamphetamine,
of violence. When it goes bad,
we sell it in lots to the army, politicians
and football teams. But the rare vintage,
pale blue in its lean dark viles,
we save for the generous and discerning
palate. Taste this one:

feel its medicinal weight, the way it coats
your teeth in a slick indulgent silk.
That's quality. The doubters, the frail,
the loveless discards and all of their
messy kind can only dream of the warmth
in your throat, the shiver that pistons
along your spine, pooling in your jaw
like the ache of a sweet plum. But you
have more important things to dream about.
Each long pull and slippery sip
is full of names, purpled voices, faces rising
away like birds, the pressure of a kiss,
the negative weight, the want.



(mondo rough draft)