Era of the Homeless Indoors

Through the smoke-flower night
I lived with her
and stayed awake
two winters
counting by the dock's mouth.

The bed freezing
where she drank vodka
and tiny depression eggs,
Perry Mason mixed with snow
on the television watching us,

I didn't know
what living drunk looked like ---
Just that it was morning
and no sunrise,
her vacuuming the freckles

she spilled across the linoleum kitchen,
and then dressing
in her skinny blanket
          hiding from the sleep taped together
          by the slow neighbors, their closed eyes
          lurking up and down our street.