CRAFT by Under My Host® Issue No. 15 Classics | Page 43

HUNGER FOR PIE, DREAM OF WHISKEY
M. L. Smoker
Or was it dream of hunger/pie for whiskey?
However it goes, you have to want it and want it bad.
You have to show up in the middle of the night,
fork in hand, arms ready to raise another glass in solidarity
for all things sweet and treacherous in the world.
We must remember to savor the little joys in perilous times.
We are, after all, the right people for the job.
The ones who observe, watch, catalog, document, note,
describe, retell, create. We are alive and drunk in the world
and in our humble margins one might just find that which is worthy.
Take pie, for instance—so often overlooked,
disregarded, left off the menu entirely.
Yet, with delectable poise, it can show up unannounced
and the entire temperament shifts. Eat and dream of long summer
evenings, picnic tables, waning light, and the delicate taste of joy.
And then, don’t forget the whiskey. Dangerous friend.
An eventual fall from grace in the making.
Neat, with water, on the rocks—but don’t you dare think
of a mixer. Not tonight. Tonight’s for the real, unadorned
partygoers. The truth-sayers, the lovers, the poets.
*(c)2017 by Kate Lebo and Samuel Ligon. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Pie & Whiskey by permission of Sasquatch Books.
© Hundred-to-One LLC 2017. All rights reserved.