when there’s no beer in the fridge
sometimes i think
the poets are just
so afraid
too afraid
to write the book
to bleed for that long
most times i think
they tell themselves
they don’t have enough time
i’m rushing, speeding
hopping, home
past red lights aplenty
i don’t have enough time
i don’t have enough time
my fingers are wet
the water has broke
in this one moment
in this delivery
i’m not afraid
of these red lights
of these safeguards
i’m not afraid
of these demands
to touch my face
to walk these lines
in this one moment
i am limitless
infinite
i am not afraid
i wake up and find
another still-born birth
someone at the bar
told me that
on her fifth marriage
she’d finally learnt
how to be a good mother
i asked her how
(she didn’t know it
i’m desperate)
she pulled me in
close
told me you just have to stop
stop being so drunk
she told me that
it thins blood
but after
after taking the piss
long enough
you find it
suffocates the home
the children
she told me to trust her
after all
she was on her sixth marriage
i asked her how
how she’d stopped
remembering failed marriages
how’d she’d learnt
to caress babies
with dry
shaking hands
how’d she’d stopped
being so afraid
too afraid
of lines and stop signs
she told me she hasn’t
you don’t
you just stop being so drunk
and give yourself enough time