Negroni

Negroni

Dahlia was a medical student at Yale

Taking a year off to get her

Master’s degree in English at Cal.

Being a Dahlia, she had eight sets of homologous

Chromosomes, whereas he had only two.

They met on a Tuesday night in the

Doe Library Reference Room,

Which resembled a whale’s belly

Turned upside down.

They went to the jazz club on

Shattuck, just down from campus.

She ordered a Negroni.

He ordered a beer and got carded.

Dahlia spoke Mandarin with an

American accent.

So did he — that much they had in common.

Thirty years later, he finally learned

What a “Negroni” was and

How to make it.

- January 2019