The Pour
BY EMILY O'NEILL
Sean and I slink
down to my Buick
with the green
handle of funeral
whiskey & 2 Mason
jars. Into my coffin
with the death
drink. Rain, pouring
the door closed
on loss. I sip and smoke
alongside the stories,
chasers for the hearse
we didn’t have
in July. We kill the thing.
One final dip of wrist. Talk
through ghostly haze. Absence,
threadbare shroud.
Pity, my invitation
for a lonesome party.
Sip and smoke. Say
and say and say: layered
shots of when, why,
where, who. The names
mix and marry. I float
face down in past
flesh: it lets me
touch the living
without shame.
Sean and I slink
down to my Buick
with the green
handle of funeral
whiskey & 2 Mason
jars. Into my coffin
with the death
drink. Rain, pouring
the door closed
on loss. I sip and smoke
alongside the stories,
chasers for the hearse
we didn’t have
in July. We kill the thing.
One final dip of wrist. Talk
through ghostly haze. Absence,
threadbare shroud.
Pity, my invitation
for a lonesome party.
Sip and smoke. Say
and say and say: layered
shots of when, why,
where, who. The names
mix and marry. I float
face down in past
flesh: it lets me
touch the living
without shame.
Emily O'Neill is a proud Jersey girl who tells loud stories in her inside voice because she wants to keep you close. Her poetry and fiction has appeared in The Pedestal, Pank, Umbrella Factory, and Nap, among others. It's also seen stages from Portland to Orlando. She has a degree in the synesthesia of storytelling from Hampshire College and splits her time between Somerville, MA and Providence, RI.