Tonight's Poet Corner: My Bottle

My Bottle
by Belinda Roddie

They refilled cup after cup from the keg,
while I, my ankles soaked in brine and my hair
tingling from the salty wind kissing the shore,
stuck with a bottle of ginger ale and propped my knee
against a rock that was as purple as amethyst
when passing cars' headlights grazed it just right.

My friend of ten years hiked to my perch,
the sand spinning in mini tornadoes against his shorts,
and offered me a red plastic chalice of chilled inspiration,
but I declined. So he sat down on the stone beside me
and drank from both cups.

"Some day," he said, "we'll either be too old for this shit,
or we'll get caught keeping it up. My money,
obviously, is on the latter." Yet for each Saturday of
three booze-laden bro years, not a single red or blue
glow had been cast upon the beach. "By the way,"
he added, "sorry about Teresa. I'd say,
'You deserve better,' but I don't think you'd believe me."

Teresa, notably, had gotten "too old for this shit,"
and I, kicking back alcohol-free joylessness,
considered retreating from the dune back into the
ocean-less, jellyfish-less, castle-less closet,
where maybe a forced hetero link-up would sober me up
despite the fact that my head was already too clear.
Still, my bottle, simple as it was,

comforted me in its cold, soulless way, allowing me
to grip its sterile neck and bite down on its open skull
to suck at carbonated distraction for a little longer
before they put out the bonfire.