Consider the margarita glass:
among the hundreds of cups it stands
like the four-eyed geek you were ten years ago
in the headlights of a high school kegger.
It has none of the weight of a beer glass
nor its fundamental thick-sided dishonesty.
It has not the whiskey glass’ dart-like precision and heft.
With its rim dipped in salt it is the transparent mouth
of a bottom-feeding fish in a chemical drainage pond. Yet
filled, it takes on the air of a quick, remorseless romance.
There are those who insist this glass belongs south.
Probably not. It’s comfortable in my hand right here
in Chi-Chi’s, surrounded by professional wrestling,
St. Patrick’s Day mobiles that don’t move,
this inexcusable bar on Monday afternoon, my car dead,
the check bad, love four hundred miles east of here.