For my niece, Mariah, and her mother
She dug those bugs out of her skin,
crawling over her face, her neck,
her chest, all the way down to her thighs.
A body of fresh sores, old scars,
and skinny-bone thin, skipping meal
after meal, sleeping with strangers for a hit.
When I enter the community center, I see her
at the receptionist desk sorting files,
I see her make-up’s desperate attempt
to conceal the scabs on her face.
She is my sister, battling addiction:
one year clean, two years—relapse, using again,
calling me with a tear-jerker excuse with the hope
that I’ll give in, and sometimes, I do, wiring money
to the rescue. Aren’t all stories of addiction
the same? I don’t know this woman, I don’t even
know my sister, how she could sell her body, sleep
in piss, let the authorities take away her kid.
They took away her kid.
I don’t think any drug could numb that pain,
I don’t understand what drives my sister seeking—
the stage set for the climax, the curtain rises for
the howl. I wonder what my sister is doing now.
Working, like this woman, the painful tasks
of second chances: punch in, punch out,
pedal the bicycle home,
all with a smile because that’s her job.
Published by Blood and Thunder, Summer 2023