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You left six bottles of Jägermeister in your fridge
when you died. Three empty, save for a shot.
Two full: one hidden by take-out containers,
another in the produce bin.
One more in your freezer, half-full.
“What does this stuff even taste like?” I asked Debbie,
tilting the emerald glass, watching thick liquid inch
along the slope, toward the neck.
Debbie tended bar for thirty years, leans in:
“It’s nasty,” she said, “like licorice cough syrup,”
sliding the mouth of the garbage bag under my hand.

— Wendy Scott

Wendy Scott lives in Highland Park and has an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Loyalhanna Review, Daughters of Sarah and AFFILIA: Journal of Women and Social Work. Many writers featured in Chapter & Verse are guests of Prosody, a radio show produced by Jan Beatty and Ellen Wadey. Prosody airs every Saturday morning on 90.5 FM.