Occasionally, before the drink convinced him
the dishevelled look was a good idea,
he'd venture into the kitchen with unsteady purpose
overdosing dinner with “[i]I'm not drunk[/i] spoonfuls of salt.
At the very least we got to see him cry.
Onions more evocative than a weeping wife
Cowering behind a piss-wet screaming child.
Yet morning would bring light.It would scythe away
The dark of his mood.
On his lap he'd whisper bitter coffee apologies
And spider his fingers up and down my spine;
I would giggle and forgive, for I was a child.

Our faces are now but mosaics scattered and tossed,
Twirling in the whirlwind that is whiskey
We are scraps of a once-upon-a-time
he is remembering the scent of her perfume,
the colour of my old bedroom
muddying all memory with vodka
which he gulps as though a child with lemonade.

Vincent James Turner

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/onion-7/