Sean Thomas Dougherty

Fugue of Vodka Light

GS with lines & variation from Lorna De Cervantes’ “From the Bus to E.L. at Atascadero State Hospital”

The woman screams I want Vodka now! Instead
I offer her more coffee, but tonight you
Know this won’t work. She is adamant—were
You here you might be scared, here
Where anger is a daily ruse. She balls her fists. Where
Is the Vodka? She’s in her fifties, delusional. The
Woman grew up in a closed factory town with its wounded
Men. Bradford’s blue factory light. Blackbirds
Of men begging for bread. Coal trains warble
Along the Allegheny River with their industrial jazz
Fed the furnaces of the Zippo plant. In
A town where she was raised by her addled grandfather a
German drunk who gave her booze at fifteen. Crazed
She said, he tried to touch me, so I left. But the wind
Tonight, off the lake brings her back to where
Last call never ends. Bring me Vodka now, the
Clear glass she drank, or dusked
Rouge with cranberry juice. She is
All adamant rage, her lipstick smeared, as
She stands, stomps her feet, pure
Moonshine in the moonlight streams &
She walks outside, fumbles with her lighter, inimical
To any cues to calm. Her brain is shadowed as
The moon with clouds. So many years the law
Found her passed out drunk. She is devious.
She’s done time. She forgets the day of the week as
The hour changes. Time for her is not a treaty
She has signed. Decades she drank a
Fifth of cheap Vodka, then a quart a day—substance
Abuse her paperwork notes the damage. I want Vodka fills
The room. The other clients want Vodka too, the
Others aren’t angry, tell her of old joints & dives, the night
Unfolds its stories, sentences then all quiets, the
Others go to bed, they leave an absence.
Calm. Do I live here too, she asks? I offer her a cup of
Decaf. Her blue irises clear as Gin.

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Sean Thomas Dougherty‘s most recent book is Death Prefers the Minor Keys from BOA Editons. He works as a long-term third shift careworker and Med Tech for folks recovering from traumatic brain injuries.