You are not
the cinder block of aggression
that kept the bathtub
from touching the
floor.  You are the ears
below the floor, you
are crouching
beneath the cottonwoods, slowly
molding into the support
system of a 1950’s kitchen
that a man’s hands learned
to bleed between.  You are his
father’s sweat when he
delivered him from his mother, you are the fists
he used to pound his reasons, a woman’s
tears seeping and melting in resin.  She
lay barefoot before you, completely naked
sliding her hands between her knees, wondering
why the bare spot is so empty when
there are bruises on her eyelids, on her
face, in her mouth; Why there are no hand prints where there
should be.  The prettiest parts of us
become compromised with badges, badges
we tell ourselves make up for the battlefield
we were too young to witness, she
wishes she would have learned ballet
when she was young, when her hair
still held shape.
When she slit her leg
and bled crimson you caught her.
You watched the human race
become disgusting with
desire. You
are composed of the same wood
they used to keep a cradle lit. The
wood of a casket, the
same wood of a white cross
in a room of crying soldiers
who finally realized
they served no benefit.

I felt a sickness
in his kiss.

He didn't know that I already knew.
I wore red to his funeral when I was eighteen.

We re-live the things that change us.

II.

Blink.  
The living room is still
a dull shade of alabaster.

A beat up can of
PBR sits crumpled
in the corner like a
forgotten love letter to God.

The radio is still on.  It hums good charlotte’s wondering
like a middle school yearbook hums omitted connections
and promises of eternal companionship.

People are passed out in couples.

III.

A dog barks somewhere.  I wonder if he’s starving, too.
I touch cereal boxes, cheese plates, bread bowls and panic
between the sheets of an unkempt and unfed twenty one year old.

IV.

I am twelve years old and i’m
standing behind a podium having
an anxiety attack in a tweed jacket
and barbie light-up sneakers.

Nobody knows what i'm saying.


V.

I ask the mirror if it's joking.
The mirror laughs back at me.
The mirror grows hands and masturbates to
every other reflection its seen before mine.

VI.

It's noon and I'm accidentally
cutting my hand open on the seam
ripper he used to communicate.

grandmas blue pick-up truck her
missing tooth and her
maple syrup scented aprons
with me in the back listening
to LeeAnn Rhymes and snapping my 25 cent
bubble gum to the rhythm of the radio, I
remember tying my shoelaces backwards, thinking
it was funny to trip over my own feet, watching
my grandmother's hands fall apart as she
chased me through the Cherry fields in
Door County, Wisconsin.  When I came
home to a flickering tv there was always
an oppressive silence from the kitchen floor like I had
just missed the third world war with my
mother's wedding ring on the kitchen table, my father's work
uniform neatly put away, my crayons
on the bathroom floor like abused bullet shells, I tried to
document the information but it had already been lived
three months before, I had only missed the final showdown
when two atom bombs refused to
explode.