Saturday, December 27, 2014

Sobriety Begins

Six and a half years
flame pouring down his throat
jagged demons fermenting mind, soul.

Fibers of life drown in sadness,
Vivian’s son.
Her shaky fingers flip pages--
lock of hair, ink footprint, baptism,
her boy.

Old blue Ford
Monday night,
took the last during the drive.

Home,
he walks the blackest bottom of the blue sea.
It’s time he says.
A tenebrous cloud looms,
she’s heard this before.

October 6th, 1969. 10:50pm.
Never mind man walked the moon,
that lives were lost on foreign shore.
Think instead of a single wildflower growing
out of rock on a high above butte.

Blackness delivers the day
he has lived to tell about.
Listen.
Before that last night, my dad never drank gin straight.