we brought you here because your father has written a strange book.  there’s very little in it about you.  we think the aim of the book is to make people sad.  news anchors, you name it.  not much in it is hard to believe.  my wife looked at me last night as if I had no secrets.  I say we but it’s just me and her.  we live in a drug free neighborhood.  look, if I had my way, Pilate would’ve made Christ wear a bowtie.  the title of the book is lesson plans for orphans.

back and forth the boys texting about **** and about standing on indian mounds.  think they are gentle because everything is a button.  my lives are both private.  two empty salt shakers I can’t look at.  my father is somewhere saving his breath and ignoring all but one finger.  I too plan to write my last from inside a glass coffin.

I am pretty like people.  to jesus on the cross this poor man brings umbrella.  he is still bringing.  still poor.  I am like his woman.  a child climbs onto my back.  my back is bitten and used to being behind me.  I drink from my shoes.  madness is an extra cup.  I know wanting all the rains is like not wanting one abusive boyfriend.  know mouth is mostly mouthpiece at a father’s funeral.  to all men a certain radius is hereditary.  I talk in cycles.

the bicycles were given a much needed space and a few people went to their stomachs in a representation loosely based on the most elegant sentence ever written about a groupie     and even a baby helicopter with a hidden remote flew over the open gifting and caused a bit of a scare with a firecracker     our fear of it cowered the elements     but to disarm there came a cake in the shape of a church bell     the rain would ruin     but at the time to see people outside     being little ramps     of privacy

i.

when his fingers began to bleed, father stopped closing his eyes to pray.  

     the worst thing I heard as a child was how god made
not only
me.

it was either the suicide of my imaginary friends or the imagined
suicide     of my real.  mother’s hands were that way

because of the dye
in dish gloves.  

ii.

on this that has become the story of my prematurity
I’ll say    

the food we get has already been defeated.

iii.

the boredom of today’s children
has no depth.

touch a throat in a totem’s mouth.

iv.

your mother was a hologram of a voodoo doll.

when father
not father
as the gay
madman
first met
her     the bump on her head

was much
bigger.

v.

with a pocket knife or some other **** thing the word gargoyle has been scraped into every idle machine.

the drug addled uncles have a rare focus and take non-consecutive short naps.  

you can shake your head about the babies

they remember
nothing.

vi.

god is no more than a clipped moan
scrambles
the angels.

the dove went
from Noah’s hands

over white cats
and driftwood

to a second
meaner
dove

i.

at Beggar’s Pond with cousin I seen this bullfrog leap open mouthed from a mud bubble at a low bird and it took the bird to depths.  we wowed our way through reenactments but there was no betraying.  frog thrash nor bird thrash came to relieve the sight which had passed

had become
our post.    


ii.

men on break from the hauling of your stretchered father     men parked     yonder.

my long stick tied to yours and may our greatest concentration be with us     may it scoot

god  

over.


iii.

this ladder once leaned on the Tower of Babel.  black cat, these are the jokes.  

as crow
& thunder  
battle.


iv.

then again, a pair of babysitting sisters thought he was

plenty fine     like a little

*******
tornado.


v.

I look it up about bullfrogs.

you can’t take the wire out of the lamb.

when I look you in the eye
I feel my brain
is cared for
under the seat
of a snowed-on
forklift.

to get my son’s attention
I tap with a spoon
on the glass circle
of a running
dryer’s
door.

my son is of course
hungry     but in the meat
of a difficult
book.

the night is never young.
to read the book
is to believe
one can see
blood     with blood.

at times my father
in the middle of my dream
sits on a riding mower
as if it’s a boat
he dragged
without help
over the parts of this land
feared
by glacier.

part of my body is sad.

during service
a slight girl
with a weight problem
somersaults
down
the church’s
main.  

in choir, her boyfriend
longs
for a dart-gun
so he can stop
slicking
birds.

the school’s
second janitor
crushes a beetle
in the pages
of a hymnal     but the beetle
survives.

it’s heard tell
that this
second
janitor
hit puberty
without ever
getting
an *******
because his blood
became sidetracked
by the smallness
of his fingers.

it occurs to me the only place
the janitor
can hold an egg
would need to resemble
a dark
weekday
church
and that
if god

gave beauty
the world     he gave

fragility
my first
unborn
son
perfecting     an attraction
to nothing.

I bury the carnival fish.  my neighbor pretends he is casting while my son ***** on the opening of a plastic bag.  I take the bag and blow into it then pop it on my palm.  my neighbor’s heart is safe but he tries to grab it anyway.  the vietnam war is a pop-up book of the vietnam war.

in the idea, god creates only those creatures already identified by the man he can’t shake.  because god is patient, the man has no *****.  the ***** itself is kept in a pine box three times its size while jesus is away.    

when my wife found out she was having a girl she told people she lived alone.

there’s rain
and then
there is
outdoor
beauty pageant
rain.

men of a certain age vanish into witness.  two bricks are tied to a pair of hands that go on to clap above a baby.  I chop the tail of the mouse in your mouth to pieces.  optimism is any man after me also ******* unsuccessfully underwater.  is your god admitting there will be no more where that came from.

I am a dark spot
in the ocean-

     mother
she presses
down

     if I had legs
I’d want them

he regards his ice cream cone as if he’s the lone yearly visitor of a grave.  because I cannot remember his name, we are together two men home from war.  it’s how I’m struck

just as my son
might be     on some

hot day
when life
shortens
fame.

we may not have invented god
but surely     we invented

god’s
silence-

he must
hear us
think

newly
with the knowledge
of being
god

a man stood
woozily
in an Ohio
field

feeling passed over
like a horse’s
one
thought

and was hit
in the head
by a pebble
masquerading
as a stray
bullet

now, no matter
if he rubbed
the pebble     or his head

he was not given
three wishes
but three
separate
people     to forgive

and chose
himself

the would be
landmarks

     (the fish)     she eats     in a dream.

formerly, a palmist.
sweet on my mom.

mine are still
her favorite

hands.  

on its own     all hunger     is young.

I was still inside my father when I was asked to talk about his shadow.

he had lost the voice of god.
he hid behind a tree
but my mother
could see his toes.

she dreamt of the day
she’d find them
attached to something
shy.

in the factory
where one’s job
is to wrestle
the storied
fish

the lunch pails
of the
     existentially
kind of
scared

hold their own
against

the stunningly
migrant
bellies     of the daughters

our boss
denies

and some of us
know our thirst
here

as a baseball
not breaking
a window    

while all of us
stick to knowing

that the world
over

     it’s impossible
for the devil     to sin

fake interviews with fake people*.  the wording lures them from the fattening of babies who talk early.  my silent uncle dying on a bed was asked if he had any first words.  I was going to slice bread but pointed the knife at my ear hole, held it with my left, and slammed it in with my right.  a man writes a song and sings it to the belly he thinks houses a son.  his daughter stops a bullet from bruising his wife’s spine and is delivered unmolested but in high school begins to smell like gunpowder.  she joins the KKK but doesn’t tell the KKK.  I wake up behind the wheel of a car just in time to kiss the driver’s neck and the driver makes a fish face so horribly a child giggles in hell and pretty soon.

a bare clothesline
the lull
between
opposing
one-eared
beggars  

-

when in
a backyard
pool
we’re dry
inside
trees  

-

     **** & abridged
I cross
from paint
can
to cement
block
on a stolen
plank

from a local
high dive

-

     ****, brother

it’s your best
work

i.

I have for you a bird barely alive.  my son calls it the foot of a large rabbit.  he knows I need a way of thinking that allows thinking to continue

     without me.  

ii.

our daughters don’t live long enough to give America

     ruins.  their legs give out     but before

they collapse     we wish them    

luck…

iii.

…touch your father
see if your mother
comes back

when
as two
ailments
embedded
in the health
of an Ohio
motel
we marked
time
with an ant
crawling
the arm
span
of jesus
and were told
by a man
who
to this day
muscles out
of our
memory
to say
again
how he’d have
better luck
finding
a part
for our
or for any
car’s
shadow

my son’s creator couldn’t settle on a disguise.
     the top of his skull is more like a wet rag.

your work computer can only deny
so much
****.  

Hansel & Gretel were two rich kids who killed someone’s mother.

this must be satan’s emergency room.  where so withdrawn I declare myself in need of stitches.  where my mother empties vending machines once a week hoping to see me but dresses like a man her father knew.  where paperwork is accepted from females only and files one as pregnant or twice as pregnant.  where my son would make an airplane but for the heat in his hands.  where my feet grow toward the ocean until I am all feet and my face goes straight.  where satan himself does what he can.  fills the bedpans on days of inspection.

a person goes dark.  night shifts disappear.  a lone panic capsizes the anatomically correct.  men fill up on mouthwash.  men float.  women bite their tongues in half before they can say women and children.  insomnia becomes more than the over-hyped novelization of insomnia.  a boy draws a cutlass in a broom closet and is told he can’t sleep.  I begin to want more from a diagnosis.  a kite being flown in hell by a son gone pro.

she believed the spider
had yelled at her
and she yelled
back
but yelling
wasn’t enough.

her boy was at a friend’s house
again and again.

in house, her carsickness
consumed
her shallow
sleep.

she had yet to believe in god
but believed     dreams
to be god pulling her out
of her eyes.

good people
don’t see
the highway
helicopter
as bait.

my hands miss me.
two aches
on a frosted
window.
I carry my son
as if he’s come
from the freezer.
he is life on the moon.

     hell on earth
stop treating
addiction

like it’s something
you haven’t
attained.

instead of running the orphanage, your husband has been going to movie after movie.  he no longer acts like a child in bed.  his crying seems attached to sadness at both ends.  his mother keeps calling when he’s not home.  she’s never met his father.  his father calls from the same number.  you want to tell him but need his son’s blessing.  your own kids are full of woe.  they laugh so hard about it their poor stomachs skip meals 101.  when you visit the ATM it’s to put money in an account for a friend who married up.  it’s not you on the cross where your water breaks.

you’re angry that they’re beating him while you’re awake.  to qualify for the reverie of picturing a river it is necessary that you recall the correct number of infants that set sail.  the basketmaker has dedicated her life to relocation.  she leaves behind the ugliest bells.  your son has never been ill but acts like jesus surprised that he is.  the television powers down every time a stone turns into stone.  dying would mean dying before your brother whose blind wife means to live only as humbly as her dyslexia allows.  the *****.

a friend of mine begs me to have a beginning.  I rub my hands together and lose track of which cleans which.  my mother steps back and forth over a bucket.  my father inspects the chalk outline of my brother’s progress.  my body wants to be my brother’s body and so plagiarizes the latest convulsion.  it happens to be violent.  I love my sister for trying to pinpoint the moment her shadow appeared and for deterring my stillness.  my brother is a riot.  his creation story gives birth only once with dignity.  he mangles a paper clip and pulls a praying child by the hair and is separated from his life.  the paper clip becomes a bit small enough to be used on a snake.  I have a cut that needs some attention.  the void is a man.  the beginning is money.

the infant
would get
so angry
siblings
would blow
on its face
it would start
breathing
and a biblical
sigh

would usher
itself
into the nursery
of the infant’s
mind
where

vehicle
to a mother’s
heist
     a child
of present
fathers

would happily
****
on whoever

the boys
are not
taking turns
punching a snowman
in the face.

a car
slides by…
someone inside the car
snaps a picture.

     these Ohio winters
glaze hell
blind.

my worries remain.  my double is moving up the ladder.  you think he is me and your thought is convincing.  I know I have a skirt because I’m wearing one.  the youtube video displays a duration of 5:11.  my mother pops in with a bag of sugary cereals.  there are great lengths that end with my father’s open mouth.  I am heartbroken that in the video the SUV has tinted windows behind which a daughter is supposedly processing the beating her dad takes at the booted heels of bikers.  if my double has a second life, I dream it.

there is a god but don’t encourage him.  my father means it tenderly.  in his attic a painting of a park scene has in it a woman without feet sitting on a bench.  without feet because his young mind couldn’t settle on them bare.  in the end it seems the wild dog has licked them away.  attic that in a drought of weeping became a basement.  our poverty was given an oar.  my past has a past.

I accompany the peddler
to the widow’s house
hoping to get a glimpse
of my mother.

on the way
we share coffee
from a thermos.

his car rattles to a stop
in the small drive
like a dog     I remember
then don’t.

in places like this
nowhere     lacks
a middle.

before we get out of the car
he tells me
not to worry
he was born to sell
grief insurance.

at the door
I begin to think
this is the life
then it opens

and there she is...

as far as she knows
she didn’t hear us
knock.

I’m going to let this **** me.

I’ve hired two frail boys
to roll away the stone.

my father is the man
with his pant legs
rolled to the knees
standing in the mall
fountain’s
waters.

my mother the woman
bewildered by the boy
in the food court
typing on a keyboard
attached to nothing.

my body is a word.

my son
a naked body.

my eden is Eden.

my word is southernmost.

my postman is a priest
confused     in a field
of poppies
who happens upon
a rusty     as created
knife.

my son is sick.
my son is my soap.

my triumph is a stuffed crow
hourglass
of the aforementioned
priest.

he repeats I will always be ugly.  lately, I’ve been really into my blood.  or maybe

ugliness
subsides.  

     and so it occurs to our ugly counterpart

     as a fan blows
     a small
     sock
     nowhere

how his sister    
had two
faces-

both (had work done)

on a baby’s
brief
nose

things are desperate because they are beautiful.  

my transparent sister
wants to be a surgeon.

he walks the straight line as if ghosted by a severity that could at any moment scrape the membrane world.  ahead of him a blood drawing baby floats into a small room where some poor sap must be waiting.  he is here to address the letter writing department for challenging his letter writing capabilities he recently used on behalf of his sister who has been charged with obtaining too low of a tree when in fact the rope she was issued was too long.  his father was supposed to come as well but has acquired a rare form of poet helplessness.  as for mother, she  failed to return some time ago and for all he knows is still softening the language of the animal kingdom.  seeing the baby has made me want to set aside someone to facilitate his reattachment to violence.

if it’s true, Adam must’ve been at an age strong enough to hold the baby Eve and she must’ve had some early teeth.  openings are like this when mother has been talking to delicate men.  in another, Adam has something the size of his palm in his stomach and no mouth to speak of.  in this one, mother mourns the loss of the uneaten fruit.  mourns the childless.  in the phrase wasted on the phrase pointless violence      

I don’t know like you don’t know

    we’re exiled.  in belly, a baby turns informer.  her loneliness

a first person
shooter.

girl speaking.  my father is no drunk.  not so long ago he chased his head away from hell.  he was on a binge.  he took to his tongue with a pair of pliers and wrote with a ****** finger and when it stopped working he wrote with another ****** finger and finished the sentence I don’t want to be a snake.  the pain meds put him on his belly and I brought him water he thought was drink.  he beat my ankles.  when I throw my head back my mouth is on a stretcher.

based solely on the original man in room, the man certainly seems to be charting the brain function of the child bride.  you’ll remember, his dementia opened to great controversy but as he predicted has since remained the perception of dementia.  what you might not recall is that the room is the very same room we hid while using.  both men were students then.  heavily armed.  attractive.  I still give the third world a vibrant thought.

safely, without miracle.  a process the locals call grandfathering.  I want to tell the devil about hell but we’re not on speaking terms.  in visions I nuzzle the backs of angels.  I come to, upright, in the aisle of a private library with my nose in a book of debts.  you worsen.  I believe in order to have something I can stop.  god is everywhere.  I have a job.  a boss heavy on atmosphere.

     I provide ambiance.  no place to raise a child.

women march

wrapped in foil.  my daughter is afflicted with eyesight.  while thunder remains god’s most solemn prank,
the moon is the bottom

of a prop
tree.

I exist to keep the image of my suffering alive.

my father is a cloak
that mows     the lawn.

for father


two men in their mid-fifties take turns cooking for each other in a country house.  a bucolic tiredness flattens the land.  one man says aloud *I’ll sleep when you sleep.  when the end of a thick rope appears on the doorstep the men tug at it and decide the chore is no burden.  they reel the rope into the house for three days and nights before nodding off.  once awake, the men can’t piece why the front door is propped open with a rifle they rarely use or why this or that vase is broken or why the piano bench has been moved.  neither speak it but it’s a helluva rifle.

dead owl

an oiled rag
spotted on a walk through
the morning after
a protest

-

     in a cell, a boy
hardly old enough
to be a boy

his body stuck to his clothes

his one bare foot
crisp     as starvation’s

mouse

-

          astray of a hawk

the river
leads my shoe

a father shepherds his family from the storm cellar as his own father prepares to lose the orchard.  

your life is a boy
looking for signs
made by women.  

your mother is a vow of silence
you were born     to second.

I am nobody I speak of.  those alive to nuance, those seeing

a necklace     in a grandmother’s     clotted leg.

     god is not silent.  god is forgiven.