RECKONING

Friday   Night   Beaujolais
  in a blue glass    and by
the second   I
  no longer   comprehend
the poems   I read
  the words
                       slip
out    of their meanings
  like I   wish
I could   out of this
  dress    for a lover
I haven’t had   in much
  too long
                    though desire
stays alive   despite
  me   or to   spite me
as I have   made
  such a mess of things
                    and yet
survived   to feel
  as if I have   learned
something   from all   the errors
  I have made
                     nights
such as this    with   absence
  music   wine

Grace Bauer has published four full-length collections of poems -- most recently, Nowhere All At Once, from Stephen F. Austin State University Press, and four chapbooks -- most recently, Cafe Culture, from Imaginary Friend Press. Her poems, stories and essays have also appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.