In this bar
each drink I take
in search of your taste
to forget what’s bombed, drumbeat shook the hardwood distance leading back to the road
smells much worse
than roadkill, this red
dome of predawn dark.

Across the smog church bells break up upon impact. Bombs serve as alarm clock: light that denies light

and before
when you kissed me

you tasted
like cryptic cocktail, before

more shelling.

I lick for you
at the bottoms of drinks, exhausting bar menus, tongue with hope
before the next blast,
or another burial of
children in
neighborhood parks, the 100 baby strollers lined
out front City Hall,
I still drink
my tongue always hopeful I’ll taste you again.

Akiva Israel, Prison Poet, is an artist doing time in prison for men.  She is transgender and believes that, in a previous cycle of incarnation, she did witness the first live performance of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.