pop songs made us feel *****
so we coerced ourselves into penning curse words
and eating them in a closet we thought
had been Anne Frank’s- only that war had been across the
Atlantic & our grandfathers now only knew military agents
of strange orange colors.

we’d pin up torn-out posters & record some daily static to replay
wondering if our laughter could insulate us forever
or if our mother knew it hurt us too when she would sleep all day.

now I just eat apples (you tell me they make your mouth itch)
& when I worry- its just a thought of you, hating your thighs and
feeling lonely.
now we talk of how evolution kills off too many
unable to weather clamoring silence; empty mirrors.

at bedtime, our father would read us Aesop's fables with pensive eyes
& an antique ego he kept from his ancestors’ childhood
so we learned long ago that
clarity comes
(but at a solitary price).