On The Ohio

At the dinner party
last night
he made a classic mistake...
When the host and his
wife said, well do
you want to take
your bourbon home
and he remembered the
wife offering liquor earlier
in the evening but
said, well, we
can't have any
ourselves, we're
trying
to get pregnant, he
said to himself, a social
bachelor, well
so am I,
and before all the
guests with
instinctual tackiness
said, sure,
and there they
brought out
his Early Times
untouched in the
brown bag that
lady had wrapped it
in. In this way
does the
universe
bottle its
rivers. Nothing loves
a hobo with his
own manners
like a river. And
he, he loves them
too, the
middle-classers
and young professionals,
the poor luck scrapers
and college clumps,
the elderly rising
like yeast from their
chairs. Why else
is he on this boat
but to drink for them?