he wasn’t overseas to be difficult.
he had pain in his arm, he thought

he could find a snake.  a cut-off toe.

our insides were still inside the time
that we knew him.  his arm it sorta  

came like a slug you might see freed

from a puddle’s hinterland eye.  slow

like that, wrong like that.  like these:  

hippies and father time.  a mole enters
an infected shoulder:  yours.  a mole

has been your heart, and peacefully.

your mother doesn’t know about the mole.
it’s not in the letter.