Teacher’s

‘The lesson for today, class,
is in vino veritas –
How many of you understand?’
Goldberg raises a hand.
‘Sir, I think that drink dissolves
the walls we build around ourselves,
revealing what there is inside,
the side we usually try to hide.’
The teacher smirks. ‘Oh really?
So clumsiness and cruelty,
you think, are what we truly are.
Civilized life stripped bare
exposes a cannibal pack?’
He has the disconcerting knack
of making his students seem to be
embodiments of forces he
finds leering at him through the base
of whisky bottles secretly placed
in each corner of his civilized life.
Goldberg, however, out for the night,
shares peanuts with friends and drinks lager,
his teeth bared only in laughter.

Dec 91