Toast In Two Parts

Had we wandered
so far towards (and then well off) the hardpan back roads?
Thick with bird song and ticking
without stopping for water
or branch breaking
or passed hours on blue grasses. To discover that
young quaich—hewn of living hemlock, of bonze, and mud all for once—filled
on night to brimming. Loving cup as moral as its wood
to catch our blood as quickly as we spill it.

My vessel is false bottomed, and glass, and holding her dropped hair
beneath mostly peat smoke whisky,
so I may take two handles like an oath
and drink.