Feared Drunk

[Author's note: This poem was entered in a contest while attending KCC at the request of my "Literature and Medicine" instructor. It won first place in Hawaii and went on to the national literary competition where it took second place.]

by Pam Woolway

Feared Drunk

Suddenly nobody knows where you are,
your body thin as mother’s milk,
your mind tipping like a teacup
on the flesh of a split lip.

Your body is never left alone,
a daughter or your husband sit
like sparrows sipping from an
abandoned spring.

You see things only you alone
can see; Yogi the Bear, The
Virgin Mary and a family
of literate mice.

Lucid dreams leave
your family waiting outside
the picture frame:

You paint Mary leaning
against a pine tree,
Yogi is drinking coffee on
a street corner and
the mouse delivers a note.

Then, from the bed, your gaze turns
from a pearl into a bullet.
You know exactly where you are.

Coming closer, you see the family
resembles a hungry pack
of winter worn wolves.

But there’s no den to retreat into
and no drugs to soften the return.

Once you survive
an addiction,
it becomes the duck
that ate the bread
that does not lead back home,
but rather
to a hot and yawning oven.