Poetry By Cindy Veach

        Seth Sawyers CC




Like Water like Vodka 
 

The liquor store shelves are a glut of vodka.
And I thought all vodka was vodka.

Vodka from the Russian word voda: water. 
Clear, odorless, no wonder my brother preferred vodka.

Pegasus, bothered by a gadfly, threw Bellerophon to his death.
Hubris runs in my family and thrives on straight vodka.

They say anyone can drink like a Russian. It just takes practice.
My brother kept his work thermos full of vodka.

Within his body was the body of my grandfather and great grandfather--
a deadly gene cocktail: tall, handsome with a love of vodka.

My brother’s wife locked the Smirnoff in the freezer.
“What can I do?” in Russian means “I’ll find vodka.” 

The gods granted him beauty and all that is lovely in mankind.
In the middle of the night he chain-sawed his way to the vodka.

For years I fell for the charming, debonair lie of him.
How I wanted to believe it was water not vodka.

Cosmonauts celebrated their moon landing with vodka and joy. 
At forty-five my baby brother died of vodka.

So many brands: Ketel, Chopin, Van Gogh, Gray Goose, Absolut.
Russians say there’s only good vodka and very good vodka.



The line, “The gods granted him beauty and all that is lovely in mankind,” is from The Illiad. 
The text “lie of him” is from the poem “Steubenville Ghazal,” by Kirun Kapur.





Under My Bed


Yesterday, I put a photo of my brother on the night
stand, but I’m finding it hard to look at him.
It’s the last photo. His hair short, his tight
curls buzzed off. This is not how I remember him.

There’s a yellow dog in the photo. Not his.
Whose dog? How do I not know my brother? 
What happened when I wasn’t looking? His
right hand is on the dog’s broad head. The other

hand outside the frame. I think 
it might be best to put him back 
in the box beneath my bed. I think
the dust and spiders might like him back.

He was sober three months his sponsor
said. Under my bed a monster.

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Cindy Veach’s most recent book Her Kind (CavanKerry Press) was named a finalist for the 2022 Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal. She is also the author of Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press) a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a Massachusetts Center for the Book ‘Must Read,’ and the chapbook, Innocents (Nixes Mate). Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, The Journal, and Salamander among others. She is the recipient of the Philip Booth Poetry Prize and the Samuel Allen Washington Prize. Cindy is co-poetry editor of MER. www.cindyveach.com
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