Straight No Chaser

Gamble

no one will tell you & how could they anyway, but still you'll feel deceived
no one says, one morning at 41 you'll wake up and your first thought
a memory from 15, and maybe it's because your daughter is 15

or were you 16, doesn't matter except            funny
how time exists but doesn't, the point             really being
what did you know --not much about life or other people

the sharp slap of days hurled across your body
that would later be called "refrain" and you
get so drunk one night, someone's boyfriend rapes you
in a back bedroom, you don't remember anything

it's true that you were too drunk to say no, but that's not it
it's three years later when another boy who was there says
over the phone, it was a bet & that's when you understand

the value of your body in a house of boys you called friend
and here is the part no one knows, the deepest secret you keep,
is i fucking won: you bet against my life & you, one of you ended
up dead and you, a string of jail terms, addiction and misery.

you never got out of that place where we strained to grow
broken shipped island of lost toys & i fucking escaped b/c i bet. i bet. i bet
i can survive anything. you'll tell yourself next to the body
of your 8 year old daughter and your dog as the sun rises again over new orleans.