Toast

Here’s to the two blind O’s in booze
and the sole O in blackout,

the O’s in O Lord, drinking solo, and sinking so low,

the long O in lonely,
the zero in loaded, lost, and long ago.

Let’s raise a glass to glass, as clear as air,

shot through with stolen color,
its only soul the mirror of another,

so open-mouthed, it almost isn’t there.

O where O where?
Let’s drink to the little dog gone,

to Nemo in No Man’s Land,
to the pockets of the poor,

to the shadow of a ghost of a hole in an unknown omission,
to the ocean into which all rivers flow.

So much for worry, whippoorwills, and woe.

Here’s to the empty, echoing O in lovely,
two glassy Ohs in the eyes

of Marilyn Monroe,
to those whom no one ever wholly knows.

May I propose a toast to not knowing,
to not growing old,

to gold,
to not staying but going.

Rose Kelleher


If you have any comments on this poem, Rose Kelleher would be pleased to hear from you.