One night you win at poker and the new man who claims to love you
    rages that you shamed him in front of his friends

    and sulks off to his room,
leaving you to find your way home in the dark,

& perhaps you’ve had too many fingers
    of whisky and find yourself suddenly lost,

    far from the brilliant lights and billboards,
turned circular among the dark trees

& quiet roads without names and distant scream
    of trains carrying diesel,

    & possibly you start to panic. You are vulnerable
in the thick envelope of night

and can’t remember how to use your phone as a compass.
    So you drive and drive and drive with no direction,

    knowing only that you’re moving toward something
& away from something else,

coming across an improbable 7-11,
    there on a deserted road, closing up for the night.

    A teenage clerk takes pity on the disaster you’ve become
and points you home the long way,

because the other way is the complicated way
    and he sees it is too much for you to carry.

    You imagine kissing this boy, possibly his first,
long and deep and grateful, his mouth

tasting of cigarettes and cherry Slurpee
    straight from the machine

but you’ve gambled enough for one evening.