intervention, take three

i stopped drinking maybe ten years ago

when i knocked on my best friend’s cleveland

mansion door and found him with an 8ball

of coke on a china wedding plate with a wife who traded in

nostrils for straws and three kids upstairs maybe asleep

behind eyehooked doors 

and i should have could have called someone because

if my brother passed out and the living room fire jumped

past brass andirons they would all make noisy kindling.

and i thought about doing nothing when i should have done

something which i already said but instead i cocked my face

like a onebarrel shotgun and squinted as he said,

“well, someone was going to catch us sooner or later. least it was you.”

and i had my trigger fingers on my cell in my front right pocket.

probably jeans. or khaki shorts if summer.

but in the morning three more kids could be shoved

into three manilla folders on some aquamarine

desk in some brick building down on huron

and euclid and my friend’s face would be a pixelated mug shot

ping ponging inboxes and outboxes and maybe even

arrive in the back of a black and white newspaper like a

rusted

out

limo.

and i could call his mom and dad but one was dead and another

in a rest home hacking up ash trays. and even though it’s only

a tuesday night i just drove across penn and sylvania.

and while they are downstairs on the coach talking and now pacing

and now twohopping balacony stairs i find maybe fifty rainbow pills

in a cereal bowl and a pipe inside his black gucci loafers and

a louisville slugger

and a nine millimeter

in his bedside drawer

so

we need to do

something.

but when i ask

for ideas,

you don’t say shit.

you just

keep

reading this poem,

expecting me

to decide

everything.