my grandfather has thin skin
he says
after I watched him buckle after a bunch in texture on the floor
a wire
a corner
a buckle in the universe

where man falters where he is confident to walk
and I watch the blood in a ****** mary leak into the corners of a white leather couch
a drink, spicy and cold
less orange than the purple that swells under his skin
and redder than the faded napkin I wrap around the icepack

he has eyes browner than my brothers
less brooding, more soft with an illustration,
a knowledge of all his children's lives
and I wonder, a tight cliched anxiety in my chest
would I ever be so lucky

to worry
about all my successful children?
or would it ever keep me up
to wonder
if they were happy
or after everything, all the gravel and grit
or after everything, in their lungs, in their brains, in their skin,
smoothing right, all their rigors
humming under their hearth of hearts

if I would just go to bed,
happy they would be okay
or
happy there wasn't a buckle in the universe