MADINGLEY  ROAD     

If I am lucid when my smile turns
down at the corners, I’ll give myself
a drink.  The corner bar siphons out

liquor I can weep through, tepid
as milk toast.  My ulcer tells me
Bloody Mary’s are bloodier in England.

They use real blood and thank the donor
very much.  Even the high-class
Cambridge butcher is mannerly. 

He hangs his leg of lamb
as window dressing for steak
and kidney housewives to admire.
 
If the pub on Jesus Lane
is holy enough for Jesus College,
it’s holy enough for me.  I pray

to my Bloody Mary and remember
Montana bars — the one in Dixon,
holes in the floor, the night we danced

in those lucky cracks of worn green
linoleum, danced to country western
loud as the lemon spotlight.

Dancing ranchers in straw  hats
kept their best stools waiting—
eight oak bar stools distressed

running into you at the Dixon bar
your hair turned stiff white from overdose.
After the whirling, stomping . . .  

that sudden embrace you gave me
like an unplanned  spacewalk— 
after ripping my burgundy rayon skirt

when you stepped on it, feigning regret.
I checked my hem for wounds and slippage
uncertain where to turn my gaze

not cozy with country
afraid I preferred jazz
afraid of approaching tears.

                       *

The barmaid brings an orange squash
to cleanse my sins. 
I hear the bells ringing changes,

the boy sopranos at King’s College,
voices high and pure and clear
as what I would like to hear when I am dying.

                 

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