baby on baby
violence
continues to be
the number one
reason

daycares
across the country
do not report
the imaginary
friends

of illegals

no bigger
than your hand
a robot
nearby
is dying

in the bed
of a mouse
a mouse

with an odd
belief

beep beep
in the world.

I was told by the mayor of promised elevators
a film starring my father
had been restored
to the city
archives-

                 that, so I could get there, the mayor had halted
for one day
the lowering of pianos.

pianos
not one of which
I would spot
on my way.

in the newest version
of my brother’s
suicide

he says
he’ll be back
with a note

so
perfect

open a clock
with your eye

it is not hard
it is not like

choosing
which eye

to travel with
which eye

to leave
for spider

but maybe
you are afraid

I, too
sleep

forget
that nothing
while there

was worn

what bone am I, stillness?

what can I tell my son
I carried?

what is it knows me
that isn’t god
by the humans
I am
in my sleep?

infancy, what overtakes
your period
of mourning?

good for
not much-

dear father I am your son the lesser of two unreliable narrators-

(do continue)

good for
a shadow’s
shade

and for your mother
who wanted this

haunted
by you

bird

I still
kind of
have…

your heart
becomes good-

     the older three
notice

the point
was to describe
you
to the image.

to go
in sleep
from bear
to bombed
bear.

I cotton on
to the word
wordless

wanting
to respond
to the murmur

my mother swears
a certain crow
has carried

to a still
standing
cross

(the crow itself
not unreal
but akin
to the bygone
bicep
of our
jesus)

-

I cannot share
the dream
I have

but can
its populace

-

mom, when I meet god
for the first time
I will recognize
god.

mom, sickness has only one lover.  how sad.

     here are my slack
but bed-hopping
hands.

I came back
from the dead
my handwriting
changed

God forgets things before they happen. In third or fourth grade, I was pulled out of a bathroom stall by a boy who’d been nice to my mother and I was told what should or should not be in my stomach. There was another boy with him. A city named Empty and a city named Goldfish took turns burning. I missed the future. The past, more.

have kissed the ear
of a small
boy
they do not
love
whose voice
eats bread
through a mask…

have scored their grief
as inefficient
sadness, and accepted

bowling *****
from three-fingered
men.

I swear
my guts
darken
dad

as I am in
your spot
looking
at the sea-

mother
insisted
again
on heels

     but has changed
     in other ways-

you must’ve walked
to get to those places
you stood
but it’s the standing
I recall

and the quiet-

the length
of my life
is abnormal

     but goes
     undiscovered

on city bus she pretends she is riding her back pain.  there are phrases without mouths people try for.  bouncing baby boy.  preggo.  his body is here but his mind is gone.  she is privately obnoxious in the world’s tiniest museum of logic where she is first a scrapbooking orphan created by the emergency broadcast system and second a mascot assigned to one fleeing ballerina.  her thinking companion licks ice from Ohio license plates.  shares her soft spot for headgear.

as it had not been afforded the opportunity to go mad, we called it woman.  its baby wasn’t getting any older.  our plan was to use its house blindness to burn the oven but its baby got underfoot and its dog whistled our cat to a boil.  my guess is we were trying to be men without blood.  everything we hungered for began to taste the same.

in fifth grade, the boy submits a report on being stuck with his unborn brother’s teeth.  the boy’s intent is to set himself apart and perhaps place a hard comma after the crush he has on his teacher.  as the teacher reads the report she dreads that by its end she will become convinced and so stops halfway.  she brings the report home and instead of grading it she daydreams about the sister she never had, that she surely ruined.  by sixth grade, the boy lowers his blood at will into that handheld thing where resides his anger’s only foe.

i.

while still
a butterfly
a caterpillar
landed
on the head
of the crucified
christ
who asked
himself

what can I do
that I can’t

ii.

losing a baby, no, think of it
as losing
your baby’s
hair

iii.

whatever was born had a nosebleed

the wolf in stork’s nightmare
speaks dolphin

what do I miss

my blood
your collection
of pea-sized

pillows

not roadkill
what crawls
from a costume

midday he filled his house with dogs and burned it.  he entered a nearby car he mistook for abandoned.  he sobbed so loudly my mother had only worry about being seen.  a few of the dogs made the baby pool, emerged, and leaned toward town.  he stopped sobbing for a moment to mock rev the engine and turn the wheel.  my mother banged her forehead twice on the floor of the car.  the man resumed sobbing.  my mother slept like a baby might sleep in a motel room with two televisions.  she thinks he was able to turn one of them off.

the man
makes
of his hand
a lame
spider
for he
understands
as we do
it is important
that a boy
laugh-

this next part
leaves
the poem

     but not before
the boy
uses his tongue
in a way
we will call
grotesque
because

it’s a miracle-

takes three of our men
in turn
else the fly
be swallowed

this story again
my flat
brother
on his bike
with baby possums
eight of them
under his ballcap-

the mothered vehicle
of home, the doubled
kindness
of road
and ****-

how taken
from heaven
we lived

the children
how they love
their self
harming dog

after leaving
my mother’s
double
my father
came home
twice

once
with me
as an infant
and once
with a pair
of shoes

that my brother
on my mother’s
side
filled-

at the time
my brother    
was older
than me
than regret’s

bright future

sound’s shy historian, digger

of a hole
for the mouth