Three days before
spring, winter
returns. Grows a pair
of fangs. A caustic wind
blows off hats
and sweet mint
memories of Havana
in the afternoon.
And Minnesota shorts
weather last Saturday.

I will never know
the malted and unmalted
barley in pure pot still
Irish whiskey here
or back in my great
grandfather’s mother
country. I know
the taste of so many
other lachrymal flavors
I don’t feel deprived.

And a runaway
apostrophe may, or may not,
be worth unleashing a search party
to run through pubs
along the quay to find.