I try to enjoy myself, forgetting
that my hand deprives the glass
of hundreds of possible contacts with light.
Happy flashes
that try plunging down
and die crushed on my skin.

In response,
when I rest my lips,
I intuit the violent message
beneath the edge of the polished glass.

I think of the middle Karamazov:
As long as I have bent to this cup,
I will not tear myself from it until I've drunk it all!

Shoes, shirts, perfume,
the smoke, the music,
spinning and spinning
in my throat.