Skip to content →

Oak

After a night of indulgence, your snifter

filled to the hips w/sweet brown clear,

leave a taste @ the foot, rest

your head & dream of other rich nights.

In the morning, if your head is steady, stomach

ready for the day’s first meal, check

that glass again. The clear brown

is now cloud, resin

of the barrel. W/care, raise the glass

to your nose, inhale the memory. But never—no

never—taste. That time, dear one,

is all but ash.

from dying in the scarecrow’s armsFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2018
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

Published in Mitchel L.H. Douglas Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, website, exhibit, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the Idaho Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.