measuring the days

By John Sweet

my mother's voice at
two in the morning saying
you need to be here now

my wife locked in a room
with the bones of her past and
the weight of her future

or this

my grandfather
who worked with guns for
forty years and then took his life
in a car

his son
who turned the bottle
into religion

who came out almost clean
on the other end
ten years later

not pure
but whole

breathing

filled suddenly
with the need to run