I bet Prez thinks he is heroin cool,

floating on the thin, sinking

sheets of ice in a crisp drink

icing his veins. He must think

he knows how to speak tongues

with one curl or furl

of his sopping lips

sucking the gold-toothed

and parched mouth

of another woman who heard

him play, but was oblivious

to the malice surging.

He probably picked her up

with a line about how a woman’s body

is like a saxophone,

caressing her waist with the

weighted history in his

rigid palms, running

chilled fingers around her spine,

reaching for keys in her ribs,

pressing until she sounded

like bebop. Who could love a mouth

loaded with unabridged languages

resonating in the residues

of his gums? The burgeoning plaque

and funk of not giving a fuck

one too many times;

the stifling cavities acquired from numbing

the mouth with the coolness

of coke. I wonder

where he finds air after spoiling

his lungs with a frozen and thawing

drink, muddy like brandy

with its drying burn, or ancient

like gin, what my mama calls:

Prez, a prisoner of cool, pities those

who have tried drinking

from both glasses—my father,

moonshine mouth scented,

stumbles home over my mother,

with her own platinum-toothed

and thirst-ridden mouth

from a brisk drink.

My father breathlessly whispers: Baby,

 you are some kind of instrument—

blindly looking for the keys

in her ribs, when they could’ve been strings

or woodwind tone holes, so unaware

of what sounds she makes.

I stare at my father, my voice

restraining a coarse hoarseness

hissing my disdain. How uncool

and unlearned his frigid fingers,

unable to locate where the body

needs to be pressed,

plucked, or gently tapped. His fear

of the sinking sheets of ice

in a cold drink