Drunk Dialing God

by Kate Delany

Adam Hamel

Back from the ICU, the bleating machines, the gray faces gathered around my sister’s bed

before attempting sleep, I’d arrange three glasses before me on the kitchen table, as if setting up

dominoes: several jiggers of vodka with anything poured over top, a beer, a shot to stopper

in the stupor I craved. But if it didn’t take right away, I’d lay in bed, pinned like the cockroach my sister

once caught scuttling out of our Barbie case then tacked to a board for seventh grade science class. Rising slowly,

arms outstretched to steady myself, I’d fumble to the floor, get to my knees, begin to pray. Who would’ve thought

the old Catholic prayers were right there, circling the dark standing waters of my memory, fish so easy to spear:

Our Father, Hail Mary and Act of Contrition which I spliced down to just what I needed, lopped off all but the essential start:

O my God I am sorry for my sins, O my God I am sorry,

O my God, O my God, Oh my God.

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Kate Delany is a freelance writer, college instructor and author of two books of poetry, Reading Darwin (Poets Corner Press) and Ditching (Aldrich Press). Her fiction and verse have appeared in magazines and journals, such as Art Times, Barrelhouse, Jabberwock Review, Room, and Poetry Quarterly. She is the mother of two, an avid reader, gardener, mender of second hand clothes and fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) in their work for a cure for CF, the disease her younger sister suffers from. She lives in Collingswood, NJ. More of her writing is available at: https://kdelany.journoportfolio.com/