Against Relapse
Clutch Steal
Dark Horse
Letters in a Box
Names for the Skies
Reading Comprehension 12: The Crane Wife
Replacement Parts and the Soul
Um Real
Vision
Waiting for My Father at the University Hospital Lab
Against Relapse
Al Maginnes
Drunk at ten in the morning, said
the man at the table behind us,
as though it was something unusual,
as though he had never swayed
at the starting gate of an aching new day,
seeing only chalky gray flat
before him, his blood too weighted
to move and tasting the need
to light it up or shut it down.
It’s clear he never thought it was
a good idea to dance in the office
of his ex-wife’s lawyer or to sing
“Blue Moon of Kentucky” on a bus
filled with people going to work
and busy with cell phones, briefcases
and coffee cups. He has forgotten
he could have been me or anyone
thirsty and confused enough
to need the day’s possibilities reduced
to one. Some afternoons I play
hide and seek with my daughter
in an old graveyard or inside
the labyrinth of a used book store,
hoping she will find as I have
a love for quiet places. But I don’t
want her to go for days
as I did speaking to no one
but bored store clerks who wanted me
to shut up and take my vodka
home to its orange juice, the blinds
already pulled on the day.
Yesterday, driving to work after
dropping her at school, I saw
two men I might have been,
one falling in slow motion,
the other bending to help him up,
the pathway treacherous, the day
narrow and endless before them.
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the man at the table behind us,
as though it was something unusual,
as though he had never swayed
at the starting gate of an aching new day,
seeing only chalky gray flat
before him, his blood too weighted
to move and tasting the need
to light it up or shut it down.
It’s clear he never thought it was
a good idea to dance in the office
of his ex-wife’s lawyer or to sing
“Blue Moon of Kentucky” on a bus
filled with people going to work
and busy with cell phones, briefcases
and coffee cups. He has forgotten
he could have been me or anyone
thirsty and confused enough
to need the day’s possibilities reduced
to one. Some afternoons I play
hide and seek with my daughter
in an old graveyard or inside
the labyrinth of a used book store,
hoping she will find as I have
a love for quiet places. But I don’t
want her to go for days
as I did speaking to no one
but bored store clerks who wanted me
to shut up and take my vodka
home to its orange juice, the blinds
already pulled on the day.
Yesterday, driving to work after
dropping her at school, I saw
two men I might have been,
one falling in slow motion,
the other bending to help him up,
the pathway treacherous, the day
narrow and endless before them.