Are You Drinking?
Are You Drinking? - meaning Summary
Weariness and Small Consolations
The speaker is an aging, world-weary writer who records small daily details—doctor visits, horse races, a motel exchange—while confronting boredom, physical decline, and a sense that life has become meaningless. Mundane anxieties and medical questions are met with resignation rather than drama. The poem ends on a quietly domestic note: the perceived threat is merely a cat, emphasizing solitude, routine, and modest comforts amid decline.
Read Complete AnalysesWashed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook out again. I write from the bed as I did last year. Will see the doctor on Monday. "Yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-aches and my back hurts." "Are you drinking?" he will ask. "Are you getting your exercise, your vitamins?" I think that I am just ill with life, the same stale yet fluctuating factors. Even at the track I watch the horses run by and it seems meaningless. I leave early after buying tickets on the remaining races. "Taking off?" asks the motel clerk. "Yes, it's boring," I tell him. "If you think it's boring out there," he tells me, "you oughta be back here." So here I am propped up against my pillows again just an old guy just an old writer with a yellow notebook. Something is walking across the floor toward me. Oh, it's just my cat this time.
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