Tuesday poem #362 : Wren Hanks : Inheritance

I stayed an alcoholic when everyone

grew out of it. Orange top

means a smaller needle, an orange

sinking into beer. She stayed a woman

for drugstore highlighter, bourbon from

Rite-Aid. We fell on the sidewalk,

bled in a claw-foot tub. I stayed

an alcoholic when everyone

grew out of it. She dyed her hair,

buzzed the sides of head, put her

tongue in their mouths to be polite.

Purple top means the needle

pulling testosterone from

the bottle. She stayed an alcoholic

when her friends grew out of it,

her girlfriend, her best friend,

the friend whose bangs made

her fizz. She stayed a woman

to keep us quiet, the days sunk

into beer. She stayed an alcoholic

through the first shot,

the rush when she fled, the days

after I stayed and called our name,

hers bleeding into mine.

Wren Hanks is the author of The Rise of Genderqueer, a 2018 selection for Brain Mill Press's Mineral Point Poetry Series. A 2016 Lambda Literary Emerging Writers Fellow, his poetry has been a finalist for Indiana Review's 1/2 K Prize and anthologized in Best New Poets. His recent work appears in Indiana Review, New South, Waxwing, and elsewhere. He is also the author of Prophet Fever (Hyacinth Girl Press), an Elgin Award finalist. He lives in Brooklyn, where he works as a coordinator for Animal Care Center of NYC's New Hope program, a proactive community initiative that finds homes for pets (and wildlife) in need.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan