Lee Upton's "Drunk at a Party" . "What latch keeps a brain from spinning like a prawn dropped on a stranger’s parquet?" (poem)

* painting by Colin Page

Lee Upton's "The Coast of Apples" flew off my bulletin board today. I'd cut it out from Boston Review and stuck it next to my bird calendar.  So here is a poem of hers which first appeared in Agni (2009). I like "get lugubrious with that woman / from the controller's office" and all the rest.

Drunk at a Party 

He couldn’t imagine it now,
kicking back, back kicking,
wandering around with a glass,
weirdly morose or—what’s the word?—
jolly. His voice sounding vaguely Swiss
or Peruvian or Dutch. Could he
pick up the rhythm
of the lush he once was,
get lugubrious with that woman
from the controller’s office?
Break down, regret everything or—
the opposite—
boast? What latch keeps a brain
from spinning like a prawn
dropped on a stranger’s parquet?
Ages ago in a land far away
lucky people got three martinis for lunch.
Whole lifetimes hung on a ledge
disgorging the slippery
feelers of sloe gin.
Who would he be
if he passed out again?
Or if love plucked his eyes
and made any throat glisten?
This descendant of men who broke
their necks
in buckets of hard cider?
Why am I speaking
at this moment
as if I were a man?
What ruse am I guilty of?
What keeps a lobster out of a tank?

____
Lee Upton, 2009. For more info on the poet, who teaches at Layfayette College in PA, click on her name.
*artist Colin Page, painting Lobster Fuel Tanks
*more on Colin Page