Summary

In “Portrait of the Alcoholic Floating in Space With Severed Umbilicus” the speaker describes drinking in Fort Wayne, but regretting “every drink [they] never took”(65). They recall a memory of stealing a bra from a laundromat when they were a boy and trying it on in secret back home. “Back on earth” the speaker says, “frogspit is dripping/down wild aloe spikes salmon are bullying/their way upstream” (65). They recall another memory of leaping into a pond with another boy. “When we scampered out one of us/was in love I could not be held responsible for desire,” they say (65). The speaker then says they always hoped when they died they would know why. They contemplate the aftermath of their death, their mother’s sorrow, what their brother will tell their daughter about them. “I wish/he were here now … this cave/is...