A Night So Beautiful We Burned Down the Senator’s House #10
Comfortable on the edge
of the evening
where the sparrow chirps
for company
& we are much less
adult than we were before
somebody brought up
the Senator, before we toasted
to casual mutiny,
before I brought up
that he still owns a house
about twenty miles
from our local liquor store
& hell, we’re out of red
& white wine anyway.
I could use a blue
Box with some Crown
Royal in it I say out loud.
•••
A Night So Beautiful We Burned Down the Senator’s House #11
Without a forest,
the roads are jackstraws
& midnight bends.
•••
A Night So Beautiful We Burned Down the Senator’s House #12
Six people in the car
& all of us sweating
nobody keeps
their hand down
when I ask how many
of us have lost pieces
of ourselves to the man
that’s never shown
himself to be with us.
Pain’s condensation
is always a hundred
& ten proof liquor
& we need that sort
of friendship right now.
We need the windows
to be rolled down.
•••
Darren C. Demaree is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Many Full Hands Applauding Inelegantly (2016, 8th House Publishing). His seventh collection Two Towns Over was recently selected the winner of the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and is due out March 2018. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.