Memory Of A Man Who Drank

He used to break ice with a spoon.
Give it one, two, three
good whacks with the rounded side
before it shattered in
the brown
palm of his hand.

He’d put it in the glass. Add
vodka, olives and sometimes water.
The sound of the chipped
ice in the glass.

Still,
I think of it, the
breaking of ice in summer
on the screen porch, moths
at the light, sounds low in the close
wood. And every few nights, a
gunshot crack somewhere off, or a dog, or a siren
so distant it didn’t seem to come for you. I
think of it with the snapping
of dry wood in fire, in the
flap of hunting bats, in ice, in a
spoon, in vodka, or
in even hands.