Wine with Keats
Onnyx Bei
He fans himself while he talks about
the Mermaid Tavern as if he sat
with Keats when Keats wrote the lines that make
the poet ask himself, “. . . and where
do we go from here?”
When I feel the wind
from his fan blowing on my face, I sense
the possibility of all things—
for a soul to come into this world
without passing through the caves of Hypnos
or the waters of Lethe.
I become delusional
with a glass of merlot diluted in
Romantic myths, the fruits of paradise
that tinge my palate as a mermaid sings
luring me to a dreary death.
He fans himself
and I cannot make out if it’s him
or Keats, or the mermaid who sings a faithless
song in the starry night reflecting
on the waves of the North Atlantic Sea.
I drink in wavering disbelief
in a liminal space, and I ask myself
if there could be just two degrees
separating Keats and me.
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