Edgar Lee Masters: Deacon Taylor (Spoon River Anthology)

I BELONGED to the church,
And to the party of prohibition;
And the villagers thought I died of eating watermelon.
In truth I had cirrhosis of the liver,
For every noon for thirty years,
I slipped behind the prescription partition
In Trainor’s drug store
And poured a generous drink
From the bottle marked “Spiritus frumenti.”

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Spiritus frumenti: the life of grain, aka whiskey.

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