Intoxicating

Because sometimes late at night when you stood

crying in the kitchen doorway, your father would stop

calling your mother a cunt and she would stop smashing plates,

because you’re eight and have a math test the next day,

she looked at you, pouting, turned and went to bed,

the sherry bottle empty, cloud of cigarette smoke seeping

into the framed needlepoint she finished the year before.

You lay in bed, drunk with power, smoothing worn floral sheets.

So now when your new friend confesses over hot dogs and the

roar of a baseball crowd that she’s pretty sure she’s an alcoholic,

wants your help because you mentioned you were sober, twice,

you're sure you can save her, even after she goes back out

for the sixth time, after the third boyfriend dumps her, he started

out wanting to take care of me and then it all went sideways,

after she moves back to the Midwest because she is sure her

parents love her, stops going to meetings, calling her sponsor.

Even after you sit by their hospital beds watching each of your

parents die of liver cancer, and you can’t get that feeling back.