I hear you now live in an old and colorful country
where summers are warm
and winters vary sharply,
where there’s a number of modern radio broadcasting stations
but overland communications are poor.

The bartender shakes up two more martinis
and pours them into fresh glasses.
The woman I’m with doesn’t care for me
and I’ve never felt more alone.

You’ll wonder, does it work for me?
What if my life depends on it?
I don’t know.
Initiates like me are likely to stumble, give a surface answer
or say I don’t know.

The bartender considers us patients, not customers, and knows.
The important thing is rhythm.
You must have rhythm in shaking.
For a martini, it’s the waltz.

There’s no official word from you.
What are you thinking?
I remember your smell of lilacs
the last time we made love.
Leia Zhu, eight years old,
comes on the TV to play
solo violin for Spanish Symphony in D Minor.
She plays six wrong notes —
better than what the composer intended.

I think of what you must have been like
eight years old.

My martini is large, strong and well made
with ice so hard, it doesn’t melt.
Meanwhile, the door slams, the container is sealed
and accountability begins.
My date says my face is pretty
but the pretty you find may hide an evil mind
even if you live on my blameless boulevard
with a sufficient number of barbershops.

I hear you now reside where irrigation has begun
and new farm methods introduced.

I know your existence is challenging
and may be risky and dangerous —
all processes secret.
Act accordingly.

I savor the fantasy of you being safe
and drinking a martini beside me
because martinis made you happy.
Rest assured, I won’t let a garnish pervert
drop a piece of bacon or maraschino cherry in mine.

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