Melanie Sievers - Poems

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Hard Liquor

A slip, in AA, is just a sip of whiskey or gin or any alcohol at all,
a fall as hard as those spills you took that winter in New York
when your platform shoes slid out from under you and you hit
the ice on West 30th Street shining in the neon light
of Steve’s deli and the cozy yellow glow of the liquor store
where we bought our tawny port with our pennies and dimes.
We said the broken shards of glass twinkling against the ink black
pavement were diamonds and we were rich.  Then, in a blink,
before I could grab your hand to catch you, you slipped.

Melanie Sievers
9/6/05