Liquid Courage

Truth works us fine,
it hugs and braces us,
like a hand would a mug.

It's a pencil tracing
    through a soft sheet,
    bleeding bleach
on the other side.

It is water running
    rapid, through the rocks,
    onto creeks near wooden shelters,
rising lucid and ideal.

It is this, after all,
in spite of all,
    that quenches our fair thirst
    like a guile liquid made to fill
       the cracked tile floor beneath.