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Please don't let me be misunderstood

When all the bottles are bottled

and the barrel staves smashed for kindling,

you can see on the cross-grain

where the whisky has reached. The red line,

distillers call it. The white-hot

dew and the virgin oak, sleeping exactly

in each other's arms. What is offered,

each to each, in those patient years:

the volatile compounds and the visible

changes. The angel's share lost

to atmosphere. Beloved, take me in

this way.