Whiskey River By Richard Stimac

Some prisons are their own escape. Like memory
pours itself into its own Platonic forms,

our recollections make the past, not recognize it.
That’s why whiskey is a magical genie. Rethinking

becomes free form, as Willie Nelson sang, partially
right. The whiskey river takes us, yet we do not drown,

but like runaways confused of the compass points,
float downriver, some of us Huck, others Jim.

We don’t often get to choose. I tell myself,
when I pour a fourth small nip of a bottle I saved,

in theory, for others: Huck chose Hell and the West.
Jim? What exactly did Jim choose? To be decent.

I select a $50 bourbon and the Midwest. Twain
would have understood. There is only so much

America a white person can stomach. Before vomiting,
experts say drink water. Mine is from the Mississippi.

When you add water to whiskey, the oil separates,
floats on top in small threads, like the yarns

river boatmen told, or the slicks at the refinery
near Wood River, where Lewis and Clark first camped

for the winter before poling their commission upstream.
My privilege is that my freedom resides in a bottle.

Richard Stimac has published a poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press), two poetry chapbooks, and one flash fiction chapbook. In his work, Richard explores time and memory through the landscape and humanscape of the St. Louis region.