in winter it is my first time home in three years.

I am in my bed again with a body full of volcanic acid
and a throat nervously full of phlegm as repulsively sweet
as the water of the river that I swam in when I was still young
and naked and fleshy. I have not been  
young and naked and fleshy in three years.

My bed is as hard as I picture your body being tomorrow
when we are both in your car again
and your face
still crumbles open like a basket of bread.

My mother has never baked bread.
My mother at night lies alone on sheets cold as the light from a moon.
Her voice wails like a pair of haunted hands.

Last time I saw you your voice broke apart
atop your final word to me.
Before that your hands were on my thighs like a new curse.
Since then I’ve pictured you standing with raw hands
cursing into brisk air. There are times when I try
to picture my body into something smaller, like a ******
raccoon against the side of a highway strip.

There are no tall trees
in the yard anymore, nothing
to compare my body to. (Mother cries about them all falling
in past storms.)

When my father sees me in my bed he says nothing. He’s
best at walking with his hands sour as bees.