The sort of beer I drink is better
in a shapely glass, although a sainted brewer
in Vermont vows the experience
of drinking his creations is enhanced
if they go down directly from the can.

The man became a millionaire
by following his bliss, which means
he knows whereof he speaks,
but I prefer to separate my beer
as soon as possible from BPA,
the endocrine-disrupting chemical
that lines the can’s mysterious interior.

You may point out that BPA’s ubiquity
is proof of harmlessness or proof
that we are powerless against the vastness.

I would not confess this normally,
but I am not as horny as I used to be
and I suspect that BPA—
the studies back me up on this—
may well have flimflammed my testosterone
and burgled my charisma.

You may say that BPA has leached already
by the time the beer goes in the glass.
I will not argue with you there.

You may be thinking why don’t I just drink
my beer from green or brown glass bottles, which I do
from time to time, but you have seen
the cool shelves and the outcome
of the packaging decisions
and concluded that aluminum is in.

This brings us back to the unsettling
acknowledgment of vastness and the theme
of inescapability. The probable
carcinogen glyphosate is in
the bottled beer the same
as in the canned and is no friend
of my testosterone, and PFAs are likewise
in there, probable genetic fiddlers,
and prepared to do unnatural things
to the organic regulations
that have gotten all of us this far.

I know you’re thinking
why don’t I stop drinking.
That’s been on the table for a while.

I’m open to the possibility
that I can’t shake, subconsciously, the need
to handle shapeliness and put it
to my lips without negotiation
whenever I desire.

But when I’m sitting as I am now
in this cushioned Adirondack chair, sipping
a local eight-percenter from a tulip
glass as I observe a mother
sparrow teaching her buoyant young
to pick and eat the peppergrass seeds
that loll above the paver seams
my wife sprayed with an herbicide
about ten years ago, I really need
the sparrows and the peppergrass
and all the others, can or no can,
to on some transparent level know
that I know we’re in this mess together.