November Aversion Therapy by Bruce Morton

Ah, yes, when you are

Young brain cells come cheap.

You have many more

Than you really need,

Certainly fewer

Than you put to use.

No, it was not meant

As such, no intent

To be aversion

Therapy, but then

Bourbon has not touched

My lips since that night

In nineteen sixty-

Seven, when there was

An armistice set.

Everyone said that

I seemed to have had

A very good time.

I was not conscious

Of having done so.

The next day I spilled

My guts. Who said that

Confession was good

For the soul? For what?

Future engagements

Would be skirmishes, 

Celtic ambushes,

Sophisticated sips.

The House of Sour Mash

Capitulated.

Bruce Morton splits his time between Montana and Arizona. His volume of poems, Simple Arithmetic and Other Artifices, was published in 2015. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various magazines and anthologies including, most recently, Muddy River Poetry Review, Mason Street Review, Main Street Rag, Nixes Mate Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Blue Unicorn.