the miraculous alcoholics look sleek and composed

as a cold mezcal bottle in the midday desert shadows.

composed when propped aghast in bathroom stalls,

sleek while slurring words before tall glasses,

immersed in rare aguardiente,

they seem to live forever at some far oasis.

they make sunstroke their pillow,

mirage their odd bedfellow.

someone who overhears them unzipping spines,

as they disrobe from saguaro suit, and undo

heavy aloe vera boots,

please distill into morphine drip

the ease that spreads when they slip on opium pajamas.

deliver their valerian nightclothes.

let us slumber like them with one hand on the motherlode

like b. traven, or ambrose bierce,

purposefully lost and known only by aliases in mexico.