Barely known, how deep most waters
go, so the depths they plunge
and durations of their dives
are as rarely considered. Hard-billed,
tough-as-rusty-nails-willed, they kick
and keep kicking all the way down;
tails tucked, simple buoyancy fought,
they swim until they're no longer ducks.

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In Janis Joplin's recording of "Hesitation Blues," which features a typewriter at work in the background, she sings, "Lord, if the river was made of whiskey and I was a duck, I'd just sssswim to the bottom and I'd never come up." This poem is part of a sequence called "Hotels, Motels, and Extended Stays." Here is my friend Amanda’s recipe for whiskey cake: