Parties spin off partiers, much the way

ice cubes scatter light when the glasses

are swirled.  Centrifugal force, perhaps.

 

Mother lost drinking comrades easier

than stars lose planets.  She had none,

after one old lady across the road quit.

 

Mother whistled for our dog.  No, he

had run away.  She called to the treed

crows; in return got raucous laughter.

 

She invited Father.  He was anywhere

else, letting another woman love him

with no serious resistance on his part.

 

One son was in burnt-over California,

hand-feeding windfall apples to deer

rendered receptive by local wildfires;

 

the other, writing tracts against drink

for an evangelical publication house—

she and he were patently out of sync.

 

Then like a cracked ice cube, she split

into a whole gala of ladies, all talking

at once but jaundicing the same liver.