Poetry: Co-Pay

1st Place, 2022 National Poetry Contest for Social Workers, University of Iowa

FIRST PLACE 

Co-Pay

by Devin Dierks, 2016 graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

We visit the doctor because you shake like the walk to the principal’s office

They say your liver is fine

No cirrhosis, no failure

The one thing I counted on to kill you is keeping you alive

Maybe that’s because I have taken every impact, softened every blow

Drowned my own cells in your cups, taken years off my own life in secret

My skin already withered by the reflection in your mirror, your lines in my face

On your last day they will give me mouth to mouth

To resuscitate my youth

Chest compressions to sing me back to sleep

After ten thousand nights with a ball of ice in my gut

Children pay for the sins of their fathers, I mutter as I cover your co-pay and carry the weight of exactly two handles on my back

Yours is half full, with just enough shots to get by

And an empty one for the me I’ll never know