—
Drunk on Heavenly Florida
A case of Dixie brewskis, a pair of jet skis
barricade the way to my cousin’s open door.
Dark shadow flaps across the screened porch.
On skinny pole, a Rebel flag traps the breeze.
Jimmy-Roy was a handsome if whiney guy,
loved camping, fishing, canoeing the Glades.
For the last thirty years, though, he’s carried
whiskey all day in a Big Gulp cup. He’ll buy
a microwave burrito not for lunch, but to show
his crew he still eats solid food. Thin as a nail,
the face of eighty-five at fifty-eight, he abides.
Jimmy’s wife? Left him. He’s the boss, though,
of Mexican guys keeping his business “on task.”
Behind his place, wild hogs root, snort, and trample
what’s left of the oaky woods. Jim tours his holdings,
pissed-off. Points out a wallow with plastic flask–
see where the hogs ripped up palmetto bogs? Jesus.
His damn kids took off, too. It’s all right, Jimmy-Roy,
I tell him, our branch of the family’s just as broken,
orphans, ex-wives, drunks and ex-cons. Seems like
our clan stretches coast to coast, a Trail of Tears
of Irish-Catholic dysfunction. Don’t mind if I do
have a sip from that Big Gulp. In honor of the family.
What do you say, Cuz? Me, I’ve sworn for years
we suffer some curse. Jimmy-Roy’s land eases east,
up sandy rises, into orange groves in perfect rows.
Sweet blossoms scent even hog tracks, dug-up paths
to Heaven that dead-end beside a condo-complex
pool, mobbed today. Jimmy staggers to the fence
to spy old folks in spandex, souls that ought to bob
on the water’s surface. But they sink and lumber
through Water-Roebics. Still, they laugh and sway,
josh their instructor, and misbehave. Jimmy says
it’s a hoot that these banged-up old codgers get
baptized, resurrected, every pool-time noon.
Think my sins’ll wash off when I’m an old coot?
You are an old coot, I think, but know I oughta
keep my trap shut. Geez, but that pool looks cool,
forgiving, lovely, no matter how full of old fools.
Jim smiles, passes the big cup: “Our holy water.”
***
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Photo by Joel Kinison/Flickr
