On his deathbed, my father, who I haven’t seen in ten years, offers me homemade moonshine by Caitlin Scarano

                       Jeff Ruane CC



On his deathbed, my father, who I haven’t seen in ten years, offers me homemade moonshine 
​

Did you think it would come to this? That you’d be begging
the mirror you stuck your fist through
to put itself back together. You can’t
stitch glass. You can’t call home.
You can’t love just one part of a person. 

After this, I’ll know how things leak, that death
begins in slow drips. Your body will go down
a shower drain one yellow drop at a time. 

Ingredients of moonshine: 5 gallons of water, 8.5 pounds of cracked
corn, 1.5 pounds of crushed malted barley, a pinch
of yeast. Foreshots and heads: pray that you distill past the threat
of blindness. Hearts: ripe as years bloody
and beating on the branches of an apple tree. Take more
than you can consume and the whole bushel rots.
Tails: you’ll know when the sweetness runs thin, slick
to the touch. Feints and cuts. Set these jars
aside for an uncertain future.
 
                 After this, I’ll love and leave five men
                 in two years. After this, I’ll check the underside of my mattress
                 for mold from the sweat of all their bodies. I’ll count
                 the rocks on the bottom of a dive bar
                 bathroom floor. After this, I won’t be mad. I’ll learn
                 to save my anger for those willing
​                 to fight back.

​

Caitlin Scarano is a writer based in Anacortes, Washington. She holds a PhD in English an MFA in Poetry. Her hybrid chapbook The Hatchet and the Hammer was recently released by Ricochet Editions. Her debut collection of poems is Do Not Bring Him Water. Her work has appeared in Granta, Entropy, Carve, and Colorado Review. You can find her at caitlinscarano.com

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