Some mornings I do not hear the alarm go off. The lightest touch will startle me awake, filling our bedroom with cries of birds. It's not the hours spent in therapy, nor self-help books stacked beside our bed, that keep me up until four each night -- it's your body reeking of alcohol. Hold me like a dream that will dissolve, a childhood you never had. Go on sleeping while I count fifty dollar bills floating up the chimney, black sheep without a shepherd. It's not God we trust, but ash, spindled faces that never cracked a smile. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org |