The Poetry of Gin and Bourbon

On Friday, a poem titled “Gin,” by Jacqueline Berger, was featured in the Writer’s Almanac. Most of you know that I enjoy a good martini as much as the next gal, and this was a lovely poem (not just about gin, of course). These lines appear in the middle of it:

But that moment

when we climb into bed

on a winter’s night,

letting our bodies lie down,

letting the day be over,

it’s not unlike the way gin

loosens the rope, lets float

the raft into its stillest waters.

Happy hour, when the landscape

loses its daylight meaning

as it slips into the silk of dusk

before night pours down its jazzy notes

in a cathedral of crushed velvet.

Ah, happy hour. I had to forward this to some of the people I most enjoy happy houring with. They appreciated it too, and Martha e-mailed back: “That’s really lovely. Do you have one about bourbon?” Martha and I are both on a bourbon kick. I wrote back: “I think I should write one about bourbon.” But before I could even seriously consider doing so, I received this back from her:

There once was a girl quite suburban

Who drank too many glasses of bourbon.

They made her feel happy

Til she woke and felt crappy.

She found the whole thing quite disturbon.

And now I may never write a poem about bourbon. I mean, why mess with perfection?