Tequila Blessing

To all imbibers of the GirlieToolshed Reserve:

As you drink this colorless muse,
May you feel the warmth behind your eyelids,
the itch in the fold of your arm,
the tiny sockhop on each fingernail,
the reach between this and that.
May you feel the curl of your cigarette smoke as it licks your cheek,
the feast at the end of each inhale.
May you scribble the sense of alter and altar,
May you hear the engines of stock cars on the tongue of your lover and
eat the grub of your longings...every least and last one of them.
Lastly, may you hold me amongst you and your scratchy sweaters.
To Joan: the most daring, most certain woman I've ever known, the only one daring the buffalo to produce a pearl.
To Thad: good times as you head off to a new part of your life...gasoline and tinker toys for you!
To Mike: all noise and quiet, a motorcycle between the thighs...drink up for understanding that art is the only road to everywhere.
To Andrea: to your explosive genie bottle magnitude and fearlessness.
To Colin: here's to your courage and for evermore of it.
In honor of Krissy...another fearless femme who could eat a lazy boy and then turn cartwheels.
And to Willis...purveyor of the Western Pacific mix, mood arms that reach across the ocean to the hearts of all of us to tip his shot glass back from the bath to the porch to the campfire and the sketchbook.
Wish you were here, or I was there.