While acquitting the performance of an impatient day
When indulgence reaches a willing simmer
Somehow my skewed estrade seems vivider
Although I know, near retreating, this is the way

I’m lost in the limits of my terraza patio
I write a few lines I think then I unthink
Soon after the fourth martini I can only blink
Or juggle illusions of olives in a magic show

The last inch of my cigar glowers a warning
To indulge and ink is like mad Bacchus not drinking
Or so Dorothy Parker might wink and insist

I expect come morning there will be mourning
If only the next day will forgive my clinking
Before mumbling something absurd about Ernest

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Kenneth Boyd is an emerging poet. His poetry appeared in “Of Poets & Poetry” and his book, Grasshopper Dreams, was published in 2023. According to Kirkus Reviews, “Page after page, Boyd offers a compilation of evocative and graceful poetry.”