Decision Time For The Would-Be Twelve Stepper
       

directly above one-stop liquor store
meetings occur every hour on the hour.

across the street leaned against a church
a man contemplates which cathedral,

upstairs or down, liquor or step one?
tonight he is powerless & a scotch

offers sanctuary between sane & insane.
you have to step over used needles

full of residual blood, perhaps viral.
in the room upstairs everybody wants

serenity but secretly a dime bag & a forty.
directly above one-stop liquor store

bodies with track marks & ill livers
use monikers of forgiveness to heal

what the man across the street leaned
up against the church wrestles with,

ironic to say the least. summer
stretches long misery winter folded

into the city, tranquil air, & the moan
of traffic. he repeats to himself: i am.

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Copyright © 2013 Randall Horton All rights reserved
from Pitch Dark Anarchy
Triquarterly Books/Northwestern University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission