Drunk Ages
Christine Krieger-Stephens


I walked around like that all night,
              and no one told me.
Morning broke the news, broke my head, my dress

a crumpled wreck of cigarette burns
              I found
on the closet floor. They called me crazy,

called me slut, and no one told me.
              My body knew
but didn’t tell me. Wherever I went, no one knew me.

They saw but didn’t see. They kicked me out
              of their houses.
They said, la la la la la la la la.

Dawn was a gift I didn’t want to deserve,
                but time marches over,
time rolls, time crushes, and bears it all.