Whiskey Cellar

    Salvaging old
spirits whiskey cellar.

Hand-forged
square nails.

Rusty spikes
to hold
together

modern-day
ranch
furniture.

Searching for
long-dead
rebel
personalities.

They're just
about
everywhere---

you just have
to change
your
perspective
to see them.

This particular
whiskey cellar
was a
meeting place

for old-day
quarry workers,
bachelor miners,
and a lair
for lusty
ladies.

The rake makes
these salvage
trips.

Black widows
are something
better dealt
with at
rake's length.

Carefully pulling
out the precious
square heads with
the nail claw,

putting
them in a
nail keg,

speak of
boom times

and slack
to those
hellraisers
happy to
come here,

this
whiskey cellar,

to escape the
hornet's nest
of public opinion

and gossip
they had
aroused
in town

merrymaking
well into
the wee hours.

Whiskey is history,
and
History is whiskey.

Copyright 2005 Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist