A lovely, wooden kitchen set, made for children

Came in 

The endless glass bottles of liquor stacked upon an arched, counter, like a fancy bar

Props in the games of my sister and I

Air-pouring the bottles into display cups collected from around the world

A magical, fan favorite of a cup, yellow and green, with a surgery, salted lime etched into the top

Looking like a drink waiters brought to my mom

Everytime we would go 

To Cafè Navona 

Never drank within the house

We fought over who would be bartender

Just as most kids fought over who would be shopkeeper,

Or ice cream scooper,

Or checkout employee,

A simple game. 

Consisting of fancy adult drinks that gleamed in the beautifully renovated lights

Of our basement

On her turn

We were no bartenders.

It was evident.

To anyone who watched our games, and even to ourselves.

No glamorous cocktail sipping, woman

But we pretended to be.

All kids did.

Ignoring the burps and the slurs

And the stumbles

And vomit

Oh the loud, gagging vomit

Cowering upstairs

My mom

Covered our ears, from the painstaking, bloodcurdling, nails-on a chalkboard

Gagging. 

Real alcohol, drunk by real adults.

Not the tito’s vodka, or Captain Morgan’s rum or cabernet stacked in the basement like decoration

Eaten away by the endless amounts of dust

Real alcohol. 

A real adult drink.

A buttery, golden sip of scotch 

I’d always thought, one needed something as strong as scotch to get horribly drunk.

My dad drank beer.

My mom sipped red wine.

My uncle licked away at cocktails.

None of them ever stumbled or blew chunks onto the toilet seat.

Not until the scotch. 

The beautiful glasses, covering the table like a display of china.

I’d like to say they were untouched.

But through the dust, tiny, mouse-like fingerprints 

Smeared at the clean and glassy, purple, red, white, and brown

Archives of collections

Labels of art

One could notice, 

Though not untouched

Always full.