We all crave the quick fix: garlic for vampires;
rabbit’s foot to kick our luck into the black.
So, when you’ve gulped an extra glass
of wine, or swigged too much of Jack’s
Tennessee best, and—damn it all!—
a taillight fails, and a cop car screams up,
you may recall a tale you heard years ago
in high school gym, and suck a penny
to thwart the cursed device meant
to snare career blottos, not good drivers
like you. If they’re handy, you may
wolf raw potatoes, peanut butter, celery—
or pound down Listerine, Binaca, TicTacs,
Clorets, Diet Coke, Icebreakers Gum,
or in England, Breathalyzer Blitz, trying
to stop your body from ratting on you.
Empty-handed, you might even,
as one desperate drunk did, tear off
and swallow strips of your skivvies,
hoping the cloth absorbs the booze.
As for the three-time loser who—
in a holding tank, watching his life cave in,
his last chance funnel down the reeking
loo—ate his own shit, convinced
the stink would flummox the machine?
“I’d never stoop that low,” we think
as we slink out of a meeting with the boss,
rubbing something sticky on our chin.