Get drunk Baudelaire instructs us 

& he lets you pick your poison    :

with wine, with poetry, or with virtue

& what can I say? I’m just a humble

student of literature, a textual devotee.

He promises that the stars, the wind, 

the birds, & the waves all want us to be 

drunk. Leave it to the French to nail 

an endorsement. Plus, in 1750 Jeanne 

Antoinette de Pompadour declared that 

champagne makes women more beautiful 

after they drink it. Her breasts served as 

the blueprint for crystal coupe glasses & 

that’s the thing about the French     :

They understand the value of hedonism 

& the urgency of being a bad bitch. You 

didn’t get to be the it girl in Louis XV’s 

clique by acting modest. Baudelaire warns

time is gonna kill you anyway, don’t be

fucking basic & maybe I’m paraphrasing 

but getting drunk is better than rotting in 

a homeland that treats me like a stranger 

so I dive into a pool of Moët & roll myself 

in demerara & gold leaf like a decadent 

croquette armored in brown & gold so 

maybe I can pass as a stolen artifact & lock

myself in the museum alongside the crystal 

breasts to waste away drunk, fine, & sublime.