By Amelia Liang

This is my drunk sestina.

I have to be drunk

to write anything of quality

or something like it. This blank page

is so terrifying. I’m glad for the drink

because otherwise I would write nothing

at all. I would think nothing

of myself, I wouldn’t be able to write this sestina

and now, with the drink

I’m uninhibited and a thousand thoughts come to mind and they, too, make me drunk

and full is the page

or half-full. I think of the quality,

the texture of your thighs, the qualities

you liked in me, now nothing

is coming to me with the tequila on the page

and unfinished is my sestina

despite all the images of your thighs and the curve of your hands, these make me drunk

in images of your breasts, your lips when you drink

lemonade, Belgian beer of quality

and you, off of nights on the porch, were drunk

of my lips on your knee, of moths in the light, of unnamed constellations, of nothing

these thoughts, these images make this sestina

on this no longer blank page

this filled page, a sheet, a page

of our history, we used to drink

together, not thinking of sestinas,

sonnets, equations, nail polish, just of the quality

of the beer, or wine, of nothing

and I, for one, would get drunk

off of the beauty of your face, our words, our silence, drunk

off of my words written on the pages

of my composition notebook, nothing

extraordinary, just a sip of the drink

you handed me on the porch, with those shadows under your cheekbones, something in that quality

of yours made me think, made me want to write this sestina.

And now I’m thoroughly drunk, writing your simple sestina

on this page, trying to create something of quality

and it isn’t nothing, but it’s just a drunk sestina. Hallelujah.