....              Growing up,
I                     thought I was the hero in our family. You never whipped out hate                 in the form of a belt; You never left a mark. But it didn't hurt your                case any less; It didn't hurt us any less. I offered my bruised
face                for you to vent your rage on; I took hard words and hard shoves
so...            the rest of them didn't have to. (You had too many kids by the way.)


"Go              for broke" doesn't apply when it comes to kids. With Mom
away"          you never had a chance, and I get that, but seven punching bags?
"Stop              at two in the next life, don't go for seven. You couldn't handle
it."                  You didn't deserve us, I don't care if you do now. Do
"You               even deserve us now? You've changed, you're stronger. You
are                 not the man you used to be, and I get that. But that man was fine
hurting          me whenever he didn't get his way, or work went bad. You left
me."                alone in the dark to rot into this hateful, bitter man I am today.

You                are a good father, now. You're raising the youngest with so much
care.              But I don't know if that's enough for me. God help me, but
I                     can't forgive you, even now. Even after all the effort I
know             you're putting in, because it's not for my sake. It's for his, and
that                isn't good enough. It's too little too late. I'd sign "I love you" but...

I just
don't
any more.

I sit at a two-top by myself
by the bar. I draw on the back
of a bill with a cheap pen I found
clicked in a foam cup upstairs.
I draw flat cars, flat poles,
flat humans. I give them swirl
hair and no fists.
They are all alike.
The bartender comes over and tells
me that the bar is closed. I hold
my left hand up to him and draw
the sky. I fill it with carbon pink stars
and coffee nebulae. Saturn's rings
are made of cornbread crumbs.

I blow a straw paper comet across the galaxy.

I drew pants out of my backpack
like a well bucket brimming pennies.
Legs upon legs tied together
in a campfire circle and sitting
on moss'd rocks, listening to rock
music, drinking Rolling Rock,
and nothing else. I pulled up
on inseams to a single black
pocket liner sixteen cents richer,
but the fire. Oh, that fire, flames whipping
weaker than slave drivers weaker
than the wind bailing low-lying
lake water to the faux Dover beach
mound of sand by the mud shore
like the crayfish were drowning.
The sand was like trampled
"welcome" mats worn-in by sidestepping
horseshoe players setting down
their tin cans by the mound.
A pitching machine on the pitcher's mound.
Machines have made the big leagues.
I quit baseball when Coach Seth castrated
my half-friends with a robot.
Some took red stitches to the face,
the lucky ones. But the fire—if you could consider
a Bunsen burner-esque flame a fire—turned
our burnt sienna bottles into burning-out beacons,
tiki torches between pine trees, street lamps
kicking off in four hours, a box of matches,
and a lightning bug's ***.

Gunmetal Christmas socks pulled
past the calf like go-getter high school
girls "rocking" rainbow ******* below
the belt loops. I never went a day
without seeing short shorts and socks
replacing pant legs with a gap at the knee
to breathe. Downplay X-mas with black
jeans thinning 'bove the knees. I guess
it's payback for all the surly Santas
paid per nervous child lapdance
that got ******* out of $1.50
because I walked away.
For all the St. Nicks breathing pressurized
bourbon on little kids' wishlists.
Thread through a burgundy belt frayed
by the buckle teeth. And I'm sure this is really
burgundy, probably the only burgundy I never
questioned much, unless the manufacturer's
lying to me. Unless it's really a flexible case
for wild circuits and tiny open mics in bars
going on 'round the clock. Not just Tuesdays.
Fiber optics around my waist transmitting
telephone transmissions and cybernetic ****
monitoring my hips and what my **** does.
And my thoughts; they're ******* taking
my thoughts. Precious poetry lines lost
to the scarcity of pens in my car, when I'll
shave next, whether or not I want a burr grinder,
if I'll break glasses at work and have to drink
the glitters like iced tea from the hardwood floor.
Maybe I'll cut my gums. Maybe my tongue'll
become a chandelier butterfly and carry
me to Coudersport or Elmira or Nowhere
to watch pregnant teenagers push flat-tire
shopping carts ******-shaking in the newborn
section. Their babies are spitting up Gerber plans
Mom has never considered. Baby's just a rock rolling
down the birth canal that may someday end up
a boulder in a state park.

You hacks wouldn't know
real poetry if it ****** you.

My mom tried to sweep
clean the cigarette burns on the armrest,
and turned the plastic-cracked
lampshade away from rare houseguests.
The arrow-shaped gap melted
at the middle and leaked down
the shade like a stopped-
up gutter. Climbing out her bedroom
window, she knelt on the rotten
mint shingles and tossed matted
maple leaves as indiscriminately
as rock salt onto the glassy sidewalk
drinking in the overhead halo
of Penelec Electric and pine needles.

Needles—

The red biohazard suitcase
in the dining room is packed
full for distribution
in a Philadelphian switchyard.

City of Brotherly Burning Barrels
and railroad-tie benches—
but not for dressing up suburban
meditation gardens, or housing
yellow jackets and half-melted
Army men. For sitting, sleeping,
and supplying calf splinters
for small talk along the Schuylkill
River, watching the cell lights
of Eastern State get swallowed
whole by the systematic tall grass,
one by one, thanking some blessed
something for their freedom
in the boxcars, their *** and Lucifer
matches, and each other.

Cool Daddy-os dig free
between a highway from then
breathing out youth,

breathing in universe,
holding their poetry guts,
letting them swell.

Swell big balloon pin *****
pop splatter ink notebook.
Words, words, planned lines.*

The cursive coffee house
where people yak metaphors
is congress. Mad.

And I'm a saucer cat
deciding to run, or burn,
when the cup tips.

And I'm the last few lights
radiating false security
on highway cars.

And I'm the road, hoarding
rubber tires and soda cans
for newish guard rails.

And I am oak trees mourning
fallen brothers, lovers 'cause
we all fall the same.

It all goes the same way.  
It all swells, pops, talks, burns, and
falls the same way.