The taste they say for they must

or they feel that they must so they say

so they say they say it has none,

there’s no taste, just water.

Water: the glassy lake Christ trod,

a bowl Herod rinsed his fingers in,

the rain falling on Troy’s ruins,

last word last balm of the living.

The same water, over and over. They say

for they say for they must so they say

we’re running out running dry but there’s always

the same amount as there’s always been.

It’s we who are more. As for myself

I’ve spent all my days working out

just what little Miss Peaches might like

and I’m due a day off for the rest of my life.

So out of the freezer the bottle, the green

frosty bottle, its label iced in cyrillic,

the glass and the water beside the glass.

Russische. Moskovskaya. Stolichnaya.

So this is the taste of nothing:

nothing then nothing again. Nothing at all.

The taste of the air, of wind on the fields,

the wind through the long wet forest.

A stream and the rain. I lie in my yard

and open my mouth to the moon and the down falling rain

and the rods of its words speak over my tongue

to the back of my throat and they say

Voda

Water

Vodka

Voda

Water

Vodka

Voda

Water

Vodka

Voda

Water

Vodka

Voda

Water

Vodka