it........

it


i remember
my grandfather always kept it in a brown paper bag
and he let us take swigs of it

my mother and grandma admonishing
that it looked like piss and tasted like it too

uncles on both sides of my family
entertained it on a regular basis

one of them hitching his team of work horses
to an old wooden wagon
so he could make it to town on a Saturday's eve.

my father used to make his own brew of it
in a big ceramic urn in the upstairs bedroom
it sat there for days covered with an
embroidered tea towel

i remember
it made these men crazy
some to the point of anger and violence
and
regret
and destruction
and death

still
it remained

it
still remains.