Alcohol

When I can’t sleep, it helps me to know
that two hours away, in a museum,
is Maybelle Carter’s guitar. And that
further north trout swish minerals across
the river bottom. And that this river becomes
a lake which becomes another river which
becomes the lake my brother lives on.
It helps, but most times I take the stairs down
to the kitchen and drink red wine until
I feel ready to be nothing for a while.
Then I become nothing as the wine
rides through my body and becomes silt
in my liver. The darkness rumbles and ticks.
Technically though, I’m not nothing. I’m there,
just less. More than shadow, but not light.