Recovery

Kaveh Akbar

First, setting down the glass.

Then the knives.

Black resin seeps

into the carpet.

According to science,

I should be dead.

Lyptus table, unsteady

boat, drifts away.

Angostura, agave,

elderflower, rye —

the whole paradisal

bouquet spins apart.

Here, I am graceless.

No. Worse than that.