We attend church base-
ment meetings: mother-daughter
connecting over
coffee, blue label creamer
force confessions for strangers
to AA, NA,
ACA sponsors, judges
we’re hoping to prove
her recovery happened.
Later, in her Civic, off
Reseda alleys
she dives for treasure on trash-
day and says, off-hand,
“relapse is normal” and “the
cat piss smell will fade, in time.”
Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets 