“God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer” By Manny Grimaldi

            after Anne Sexton


You are the fervor raised at the bar before closing,
the cry inside these babies screaming,
the beloved frothing in a lover’s mouth,
the gamble in a lifelong cheater,
the endless thirst inside a gutter drunk.

You are the lift in hungry sail cloth,
the push of warming, whistling winds,
the last sun dipping far below
the tremor of a rattling breath.
The running in the river streaming.

Manny Grimaldi is a Louisville, Kentucky poet, a spit and a cough just west of the "bourbon trail".  He is the managing editor for the poetry journal Yearling out of Lexington, Kentucky.  Years ago, his drinking got arrested and thrown in jail, and occasionally Manny has marched on its behalf.  Manny is also a clown.  Personally, and by training.