Drinking Alone

by John Hoppenthaler

in the nostalgia
of tequila
a face in the mirror
hung there
corner of my eye
or rather
I thought I
saw the glint of my eye
like when you turn
your head across the night
then double take
because you think
you’ve seen a shooting
star & in that moment
                                                                    the blur
of light is gone &
all you can find there
are fixed stars
blinking


JOHN HOPPENTHALER’s books of poetry are Night Wing Over Metropolitan Area, Domestic GardenAnticipate the Coming Reservoir, and Lives of Water, all with Carnegie Mellon UP. With Kazim, Ali, he has co-edited a volume of essays on the poetry of Jean Valentine, This-World Company (U of Michigan P). Professor of CW and Literature at East Carolina University, he serves on the Advisory Board for Backbone Press, specializing in the publication and promotion of marginalized voices. His poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, New York Magazine, Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, The Literary Review, Blackbird, Southern Humanities Review, and many other journals, anthologies, and textbooks.