Advice

Advice

My advice? Hold close to pretty things.
The girl at the store who wraps your new
Dress shoes in rough brown paper then ties
It all up with a cream-colored string
Because your grandmother has finally died
And you’ve been sent to town to buy
Your own shoes for the funeral. Given more 
Money than you need, you decide to go to
The bar at the only nice hotel in town,
Where family are staying, including
Two mysterious female cousins only death
Could make appear. Though you are
Only seventeen, the bartender serves you
The only drink you know for sure,
Having heard your father order it once
On a sad evening in Milwaukee —
A Manhattan. It conjures images of the city
You’ve never been to, and the fact
You weren’t even carded makes you feel
Much older. Also, the funeral tomorrow
Has turned you grave like the sea 
On a morning of a day of rain.
Having vowed to save the cherry until
You’re done with the drink, you can’t help
But eat it. Feeling the whiskey and vermouth
Working on your body like a masseuse,
You close your eyes better to feel it.
Lo, here comes one of those cousins!
You haven’t seen her in years. 
The younger, she’s come down for a drink.
She looks right at you but doesn’t seem to
Recognize you, having not seen you
For as long as you haven’t seen her.
She looks sad, not because of the death,
Expected, even longed for, of your grandmother, 
But because of whatever the world 
Has been doing to her. You want to 
Say something, to announce yourself to her
Like a suitor, to tell her that you share 
The same blood that lulls through her veins, 
Which you can see like a fisherman’s maps 
Of the delta, set like veins of marble 
In her marble skin. Instead you drink, 
Sensing she’s looking at you, thinking 
You handsome, as she waits for the bartender 
To pour her the glass of chardonnay she asked for.
It’s alright that you’re in love with her,
As long as you don’t speak. My advice?
Hold closer to pretty things.