A Bad Drunk

And the drunk man leans against the hall,
tipping with it while the house falls—slowly,
only righted when swollen lids hide a rheum;
and we have stood within this room too long.

Too long, we have stood tipped with the house
and fallen out of the windows higher than my head
or yours. When the drunk man leans,
he leans with the house: pushing cold plaster
and uprooting the foundation, concrete torn
like paper in the hands of a child impatient—

Chipping paint from ragged corners where you
sit while the evening blackens. I am drunk
like the man but tipping sideways to the floor;
you are drunk like my mother, sipping cheap beer,
smiling to the ceiling fan, wondering which way
it turns. I wonder which way you turn, and I wonder

Does it fall? Does it always fall? Does it fall like my legs,
like the drunk man tipping his sip back from a bottle
nestled between his thighs when he grabs me roughly
and smells like tequilalime? Does it fall like the picture when
you—slowly, stumble like my mother? She was happy,

Happy when the house fell over. You are happy,
happy when I'm tipping—and the walls are always still,
lids swollen shut, and the drunk man—the drunk man
falls.