My stepmother presides behind
her tall and jagged city of coins.
I, hunch over my flat spiral—
my snail shell, eye of a sunflower, 
sleeping millipede.

She and Daddy drink 
white-wine-club spritzers
he refills from Gallo jugs 
swung from under the table,
seltzer bottles he guns—
and pours me 
Canada Dry Ginger Ale, 
drinker in trainer that I am—
clinks glasses, toasts fenékig
to the bottom.  

When he doesn’t deal what 
stepmother wants,
her lips squeeze tight— 
a quick sniff for the right card—
sniff and pucker for an ace.

Unblinking, I shift pennies,
as if nervous about my hand, 
turn my Lincolns 
to stare hard at her for me.

My swirl of pennies tightens,
Daddy fizzes up her glass,
I slap down a full house—
a house too full for her.

She crashes her piles
into the pot I pull toward me. 
She leaves Daddy 
and me to each other,
as my mother had years before.
                        

Magic waits in the bottom 
of Father’s Brut bottles—that
final sparkling drop

of 750 ml he pours
into a chipped crystal flute,
twisting the bottle, flick 

of his wrist, not to lose 
the drop that brings him 
closer to that last drop

that would stop
him from tilting the bottle,
its bottom angled high, 

lowering its mouth
to his mouth, like a bugle,
a glassblower—

his neck craned back, one hand
clutching the bottle’s neck,
the other cupping the base,

middle finger pressed 
into the concave dome, 
at the bottom, that steadies

the bottle from wobbling
when set down,
that relieves the constant

internal pressure,
that might build to bursting,
that he presses into

as if to release the last drop 
onto his tongue.
At last, to lower the bottle,
(continue poem)
look surprised at its label, 
as if reading something 
that betrayed him—

reaches out his empty for me 
to take out to the garbage.
And this time, I do.