The Sobriety Prayer?

I’m sunk  

in an armchair 

in the red glow  

of Big Hands 

because they serve 

my favourite saint –  

San Miguel, on tap. 

My plan is to  

drink a trinity –  

my last rites, 

and write… 

I’m not sure  

if this is a prayer 

or a eulogy. 

I never believed 

a funeral could be 

a celebration of life 

but this feels like one. 

(I’m on my first –  

God, it tastes worse 

already).  

I’m lucky that  

I’ve been so many people 

in so many parks of life. 

Catastrophe doesn’t take  

much leap of imagination. 

I am an addict –  

a proper one,  

lying in a bag 

of scrap medals 

and everything. 

I am homeless 

after bars 

for drink driving,  

a manslaughterer  

of years. 

I am a murdered woman, 

slurred down an alley 

into oblivion.  

I am a suicide statistic.  

A waste. A shame.  

An anecdote at work. 

I am “Whatever happened to?” 

“To who?”.  

But. And. Or.  

I am a survivor. 

I am a mother. A homemaker.  

A placemaker – I am a chartered bloody surveyor! 

I am an artist. In communion.  A moving part of a movement! 

I am a traveller. An entrepreneur? A marathon runner!? 

I am a night sky of achievements. 

(As I say goodbye 

to number one,  

I turn to God:  

who is,  

suddenly,  

every tense 

under the sun 

spoken at once). 

I am a country walker into 

a blue Sunday morning 

with a mind like sky,  

sweetly aware  

we’re never more than 

a few feet away 

from birdsong. 

I am the dinner party guest 

who wears the memory  

like a broach 

and curates a playlist 

based on the call and response  

of real conversation. 

I am a sharer of 

bad news who will 

help a relative 

crack open a pen 

and let our  

blood of ink   

sob;  

       rain;  

    violin.  

(I wish the second 

were in a better glass –  

I always thought 

a good vessel 

added to the experience... 

And, lo! I sense the Holy fucking Spirit: 

this pulsing through my body of a poem, 

this springing from my sickness –  

this magician within darkness! 

Wow. 

I feel, together, we can  

transform wine into water 

and flames into bread, 

and versa may be more interesting than vice!).  

Unloosed –  

I am an extreme 

weather event.  

A tornado of 

forest fire, 

the draught and 

the drought.  

I am a storm 

in a flood 

in an eye… 

(I need a water stop  

of my own,  

before the last one. 

Now I’ve moved into the 

beer garden of Eden, 

steadily streaming).  

I always felt 

this stream in my veins 

was home. 

How small.  

Home is a place  

far more primordial 

yet futuristic. 

A return to  

an old new.  

Home starts on the road  

(you’re there before you are). 

The road is like a cross. 

The cross is like a compass.  

The “whereness” is the crux. 

At the crux, dawns home…  

I am ready 

to be there 

before I am.  

I am grateful  –  

I don’t have to be sober; 

I get to be sober. 

This is the adventure  

of lifetimes. 

I am the Breaker 

of Cycles  

and the Tamer 

of Dragons 

and the Dancer 

of Fear. 

Jesus! 

A wise poet 

once said: 

“The centre of life 

has always been sacrifice”. 

You are – yes! –  

you are the love of the dust 

and I am,  

thank you, 

I am right here.