Biographies of Alcoholics
Turning to the end of biographies
Of Carver and Cheever,
I would find the day they had
The last drink, then read on
Through the last sober years,
The reprieve they had found,
Days blown open with space
And light like balloons.
That picture of Cheever cycling.
Those late poems of Carver’s.
And I would tell myself,
One day I’ll quit like them,
But first I have to drink enough
To make quitting a matter of life
And death. I was in the bar
Of course. Recovery was a word
Written in the future tense,
Despite its suggestion of rediscovery.
I should have stopped that day,
But the biographies seemed to say
The last drink comes near the end.