Irish Goodbye

Green beer tilts toward the rim of my plastic cup

as I dig in my bag to find my phone.

Rising from the picnic table bench,

I answer my mother’s call, trying to find

a quiet corner of the bar, but it’s St. Patrick’s Day.

Cheers and chattering fade as I cross the parking lot.

I stick to the tar when she tells me,

Your uncle is in the hospital

He’s denying doing the damage

to himself. I’ve had two Irish car bombs,

two stouts, one green ale.

She’ll text me with updates.

I stumble back to the table.

Someone tells me they love me

and I can’t look at their face.

I am the family I come from.

I let a few tears tumble to the dark wood

after I order another shot and beer,

though I am already not sitting straight.

I bum cigarettes, flicking a lighter in my left hand,

sparking and fading.

I would give him a piece of my own organ

if I could, if we matched, even though

we stopped speaking three years ago.

He once told me if his house was on fire

he wouldn’t want a woman firefighter to come,

since she would be too weak to save him.

I wonder if he feels that a woman’s liver

would be too weak for his broken, bloated body.

Since we stopped speaking,

his house did burn down.

I never got to ask who saved him.

My anger weaves itself around my ribs,

catching everything I wish I could say.

I stand up to smoke, settle on the edge

of the table to tell stories of his old lake house,

drinking vodka out of soda cans on the boat

as he opened another bottle of wine,

the sun barely past its peak.

It’s easy to act like we’re different people

until I order another beer and black out.

What in our blood begs us to drown ourselves?

Someone kisses me on the cheek

as I dangle my feet off the edge of the table,

imagining the days on the end of the dock,

dragging our toes through the ink-stain lake.

I pick at a splinter in my palm,

prodding the pain. I don’t remember leaving.

I don’t think I said goodbye,

just stumbled down the sidewalk to the next bar.