by Alex Stolis

Alcoholic blackouts don’t add up
to cancer but the fallout
lingers for years;

I don’t remember the sex
or her name
or how we ended up together,

it’s her place though, can hear
kids watching cartoons,
she gets up

her naked back to me
black hair to her waist
she puts on a robe

asks me if I want breakfast,
I tell her no, I’m late
for work already;

don’t know what day it is,
where I am
or where I need to be;

the whir and whine of the machine
winds down, the radium girls
help me off the table,

I remember her name,
the smell of sage; it’s not fear
but some other kind of death.

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Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis; he has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full length collections Pop. 1280, and John Berryman Died Here were released by Cyberwit and available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Jasper’s Folly Poetry Journal, Beatnik Cowboy, One Art Poetry, Black Moon Magazine, and Star 82 Review. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024. http://www.louisianaliterature.org/2024/04/11/new-release-announcement-alex-stolis/ , RIP Winston Smith from Allen Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024by Bottlecap Press.