Poetry |

“sobriety”

sobriety

 

 

i.

 

i tried to be less dead today

out of the grave and into the garden

 

by noon i was thirsty and called

sam with the beard from the meeting

 

sam says drinking is a window

looking out past yourself

 

if  sam is right (and he always is)

then sobriety must be a mirror

 

all morning i stared at my face

i didn’t think much of the view

 

 

ii.

 

a day never felt so spacious

i remember sam said to stay moving

 

i made some coffee and ate an orange

i smoked cigarettes and read a novel

 

i went for a run and did some sit ups

i made a salad and wrote a letter

 

but all the music sounds different

and this dark chocolate barely works

 

please lord don’t remind me

this fight is one day at a time

 

 

iii.

 

i can’t tell you about the drinking

unless i tell you about the past

 

i don’t want to tell you about the past

because then you’d see me shake

 

sam says shaking is the point

feed the fever until it breaks

 

but why does caving seem inevitable

now that the morning light is gone

 

why have i only read of resurrections

in certain books i got for free

Contributor
Dan Leach

Dan Leach has published two collections of short fiction: Floods and Fires (University of North Georgia, 2017) and Dead Mediums (Trident Press, 2022). His work has appeared in The New Orleans Review, Copper Nickel, and The Sun.

Posted in Poetry

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