When I Was a Drunk

poem

---

When I was a drunk,
I was poor so I'd buy
one can of good beer
and drink that first

then I'd drink the half-
or full case of cheap shit
beer that I could afford.
When I was a drunk,

I'd think of my childhood
years when I swore
that I'd never become
a drunk like my father.

But I binge-drank
like him. I blacked out
like him. I woke
in stranger's houses

like him. But then,
unlike my father,
I got sober and have been
sober for over thirty years.

My father never got sober.
He died of alcoholism.
I loved that broken
man. I miss him.

So let me raise
my glass of water
to my father. Let me
play an honor song

for the Indian man
who, like too many
other Indian men,
died too young.