bender By Manny Grimaldi

and even as ease enters her eyes and her black hair drops,

i judge her no less, and count myself no more friend,

because she will be drunk again. parked near her, sobered

in her car, she shows a temporary side

by the moonlit rise of the hills, waves crashing

and giving themselves to her new baptism.

suppose the sounds and sights, the hinges on gates 

slow in smooth clicks and scrapes of rust as raven’s croak 

in autumn. the next day, the hostess sees off her guests,

wine glass raised. where is she, my wife?  she is buried 

alive in oaken barrels white as the dress she wears to bed

she’d not removed, on sojourn to fruited Olympus where she 

hoofs to it, carrying grapes to the mad lover for his shindig

in a forest with fauns and faeries, goblets, and all the rural gods.

Manny Grimaldi is a Louisville, Kentucky poet, a spit and a cough just west of the "bourbon trail".  He is the managing editor for the poetry journal Yearling out of Lexington, Kentucky.  Years ago, his drinking got arrested and thrown in jail, and occasionally Manny has marched on its behalf.  Manny is also a clown.  Personally, and by training.