of the twelve steps prepared her
for the younger woman who emerged
from vodka’s wet slumber
from the swaddling fat
she shed at the Y—a girl
without a newborn’s innocence
but its same needs.
In a torrent of spring, she overflowed
her mother banks, gave up the care
of those she’d fed like fishes
from her hands. Told her husband,
her teenage children, “You can
clean and cook for yourselves.”
And left them stranded
at a company dance, on the vinyl tiles
of a cafeteria floor—huddled together
like flood victims watching the dancers’ flow,
watching her step higher, faster
than the music
flipping
the red-striped skirt
she’d bought the week before
to catch something
with her new thin body before
it was gone forever.