so what's new in the whiskey business?

 Joan Didion
sits in the corner
chain smoking

our anxiety vibrates on 
the same plane

"a babysitter once 
told me that my daughter
had death in her aura"

i tell her
i know your story 

she stares me down
asks me
"so what's new in the whiskey business?"

i know him too
and point to
the angel of death
who lights her umpteenth cigarette

she stands up 
does a slow tap dance
like the little man
in twin peaks

i look down
and i am laura palmer
in black light
my words
come out backwards

i choke
on secrets
cough up
black ants

Didion's nose is
bleeding 
she tilts her head back

and says
"embrace the dread"
but the ants 
are in my ears now
and instead i hear
embrace the dead

she fades away
until she is 
 a cloud of smoke
in the dark

then says

'there isn't much
of a difference'