One

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become
unmanageable."


A moral compass can't weather
treacherous rapids, foaming mouth of denial,
where strong handed and stern voiced
police shake down a bloated body, clearly
only weapon this shoeless, braless frame
could conceal is a jungle gym of lies.
the men record the longitude and latitudes
carved in this skin, Jesus Christ,
the whole world will know where it's been.

In cool, calmer pools of clear water,
the womb coughs strings of blood;
the intestines revolt Simpsons' yellow bile,
because "Last night...I think, I may have been hurt."
unsteady waves of doubtful words.

It's that reverse fade-to-black style,
awake on top of frail knobby baby horse legs
of a cripple, I realize, we're fucking.
there was nothing to do, but continue
onto Book 17 of the Resentment Odyssey we write,
in seeping red marrow, closed eyes
because this fear could break his spindled limbs.

The blister is larger, hobbling in boots,
down bleak, shadowed allies, a little Columbus
falling off the razor sharp edge of the world
a small discount liquor store,
because this life is merely an untapped keg of potential
where east and south serge
and the horizon cannot stop
a leaking boat willing to emerge.

Two

"Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity."


I was born in that place between the floor and the door,

where the tile is cool and the toilet overflows.

Conceived, crumpled up like my childhood drawings

because "We've just not got the space for that"

yet your cherry wood chest brims full with Starbucks receipts

because 3 years later, we may return it, urine or vomit.

"You have to believe in something, my dear"

says my wise woman, who teaches me how to be a person

because my mother and family did not.

But hadn't I always believed in an awful lot?

I had knelt gracefully at the cold hard erect alter

that quivered in one thousand forms of fear

lit smokeless candles of misery for my sisters and me,

and we were baptized in a sea of money changing mens' hands

emerging from tombs, stumbling up steps, just to be here.

In a just-right-cramped, one bedroom apart

measuring my raised battle scars, only to realize

I was the only one I ever fought and I had believed in a lot, 

but a God who could love me, I had not.