If someone brings
a gin and tonic
and forgets the gin,
what is the melody
of the missing?
Absence assails us
with the loudest din,
even when our ears bolt
their doors to the clamor.
Wind rattles leaves,
ice clinks
its restorative song.
Ah—juniper—
we need the sweet
to mask the harsh.
My silly synesthesia—
I’m mixing up sound
and taste again.
The jolt of you,
sugary, fiercely singing
lines I try to bury.
I don’t want to listen
to someone I can’t touch—
you—thundering on and on
about love,
in another thicket,
in another country.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 4.
Susana H. Case is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Dead Shark on the N Train, from Broadstone Books, 2020, which won a Pinnacle Book Award for Best Poetry Book and a NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite. She is also the author of five chapbooks. Her first collection, The Scottish Café, from Slapering Hol Press, was re-released in a dual-language English-Polish version, Kawiarnia Szkocka by Opole University Press. Case is a Professor and Program Coordinator at the New York Institute of Technology in New York City and can be reached at www.susanahcase.com.
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