Drinking With Grad Students [by James Cummins]

You have to let these poets, half your age,
have every way with you they hanker for–
like stuff you in a bamboo tiger cage,
or stomp your eyeballs on the barroom floor.
The beer helps them imagine grinding "smokes"
out on your hands–they'd slide stilettos in
between your ribs and thread bicycle spokes
through both your balls like shish kabobs; and grin.
It's just their fantasies they've trapped you in;
tomorrow all this stuff will be forgot–
they'll get back to the rhythm of the days.
You'll all agree this is the "Age of Tin,"
and all of us are wise when we adopt
the cool, protective-coloring of praise.