altar
the baby is too light. its mother puts it on a scale that reminds her of a plate her empty childhood couldn’t break. its mother invites neighbor boys to punch her in the stomach. some of the boys bail. some don’t. the mother’s nickname doubles as her real. the baby is not called bricks.
zero
when I couldn’t get my head around the surrender of my body to the flotation device of an immaculate conception, I’d simply swallow a baby that had swallowed a pill. years go by and I am zero. the number arrested for suicide.
basics
because he is asleep, he does not find himself sleeping in the tub. something slides from his belly and becomes wedged. his dream business goes under even in dream. he makes eyes at CPR manikins. his son, his life, pushes for legs.
safeguards
I call this piece
the hotel room
that left
your father.
a hammer is a good bid, an unmarked
bottle of cologne
is better.
your mother stopped in
to let me know
my high school
mile time
was threatened.
she said she would’ve come sooner
but she had to work
a fork
from her thigh.
the disabled are born liars
but lie
only once.
turnout
before the parade
I carried with me
a trombone
and entered
the high
corn-
what I played
there
was mournful
after
the fact-
a tune
for no one, for a tree’s
late
cat
outlet
depression is a non-starter. depression is depression unknowingly cured. it is like I have this shirt because it exists and not because it invites everyone whose shirt it’s not to enjoy joy. I don’t want to hear you say you’re sad to say. I ******* to reappear and think it might be why my father vanished. it’s enough during foreplay to flicker.
viewership
my youth spent trying to see the devil as a young man. my motherly youth. my **** scene a return to form. cut from yours, you have your baby’s eyes. I went unborn. I went beaten. we went together in broad daylight when broad daylight was god’s elevator.
pressure
the original thought in my head was to be postdated by god until god learned he had a baby on the way. I had children until I could only have four. what I say to self-harm is pay attention. my daughter raises her hand on the off chance she buried something in her teacher’s body. (we have stopped talking
but I can squeeze her anorexia into a phone booth) poverty myth: I groom my sons with the beak of bird abandoned. real time I tell my tongue it’s ******* curtains for the mouth I’m getting. full circle my daughter surrounds those brothers of hers that mine clone.
On having a secret mother
the boy is lacing up his right shoe
when he sees
the string
tied
to his middle
finger
and wonders
how asleep he was
when it happened-
(being forgotten
is a lot like
being forgotten
by) harm, that purple balloon
lowered into
then surrounded
by
the inactive
construction site
of the world
On suicide
you are further than I
in your worship
of the slow
vehicle
that carries
praise
back and forth
from appearing
to reappearing
god (how else)
to bully
what would
wipe you
clean
of body
language…
On foreclosure
any chance, no,
of improving
upon
my impression
of god.
noises beneath a bomb or bomb
threat.
wheelbarrows, wagons.
the occasional declawed cat
past which
I make
like I am
rowing.
(in wheelbarrow) (in wagon) otherwise,
no cats
on cat
island.
On libido
the previous verse was a poor man’s bible. like wildfire a fondness for appropriate discipline spreads. one scarecrow means practice, two scarecrows mean parentage. a third is your father’s failed garden of baby teeth. is, by definition, is. I are
motherless. what mother doesn’t know doesn’t worry. many spiders came on the wind and a few were swept into mouths briefly opened by age. what made woman did not make the disappearing girl. flashing back to a scene that’s not there or forward to one dependent on space, pain arrives
in memoriam.
On memory*
for all the showing, one would think the only things born were eyes.
when lord
says
or lords
say
this is the body
I tend
in unison
to trail
behind
my voice
as if
I could make my own
remember
the anesthesia
it underwent
to intervene.
On devastation
brother, there’s not a cigarette
on earth
that you
can surprise
On the past
my death a warped photograph of a former awe, my life
four children
drinking water
from glasses placed on either side
of my sleep-
it is on these nights
when I am sick
that I become the sound of my ears
softening
my mind’s
thoughtless position
on time, that I am ably
here, ably slow
in sight of
the aging
marksman
I’ve given
a sporting chance
On supervision
you may have been a child
projecting a maze
or an adult
memorizing
the hollowness
of things.
in a condensed version
of poverty’s
obstacle course
I still hold the hammer
that works for a mirror…
with dog or with dogs, we were presented
as two examples
of how to be
family.
I love me a farm machine
and the week
you knock yourself into.
(a silo
saddens
a drunk)
On phobia
before the brat kid
can repeat
this is not
the television
my father
writes for, it is my understanding
that such a child
belongs
to the itch
to have a child
disappear. as I refuse
(to enter
the ocean)
I’m pretty sure god has put my death in a bug.
On the need for a watchlist
if one can talk of it
one is most likely
not
poor.
we called you to life to give you a name.
odd imagery ensued.
a prisoner gave birth in the yard of your mouth.
god became the man men wanted to be. god wore a dress
he could see through. a short history
of heaven
made its way
to hell
to have its
location
shared.
your mother developed a stutter
for which I developed
a stutter
application. things began to click
on you
and when that
didn’t work
your fake cry
took on
a depth
of meaning
made us dip
(into
your brother)
On paternity
as his mother heard yesterday he was born to some nobody everyone can describe, she instructs her barber to slide a lit cigarette behind her ear. as unimportant as the barber is, his pencil makes a subtle change in her dream to put a cricket on the witness stand.
On contact
talk early, walk late.
eat
for food.
hold kitten
like a rifle, your father’s head
to god.
call my / with your
premie.
On looting
we move the cemetery to confirm there is nothing outside of this town. the ******* remains a two man show. leash laws are for dogs and angels. our doctor has a touch of deer worry. exercise is for the birds. god is the pitter patter of imagined feet. our fathers double over in bathrooms from the shame of not calling out for paper. our mothers have done the math. by now, most kids have eaten a popsicle alone in a church. I’m in it for the stick.
On my father being gay
a crow
born inside
a footstep
is passing
for dark
On having little to no vision
the amount of thought
given to locating
the secret
mind.
I am on count eight
of ten-
ten, the future.
I call your hiding place
water.
-
of course you dream of falling-
those toys
are the toys
of god’s
children.
-
staring contest-
the only child and the twin, then
the lonely
victor.
-
let there be
all
the light.
On decompression
the zombie movie
about buzzards.
the hungry enough horse.
the 48 hours
that go
undetected
in the parents
of special
needs
children.
the civilian
birthday suit, the war
footage.
On the expected delays**
in this place
paid for
by another
country’s
melancholy
two dreams
of being
run into
by a newly
pregnant
late
bloomer
are had
by the one
man
we share
like a comb
to forget
whose hair
was first