The radio screeched
With impending doom
So we grabbed what we could
And bolted out of the room

Midnight rain
Like knives
Across my cheek became
As we race into the night
With a prayer and a
Plastic flashlight

A few hundred yards
And we’re at the edge
Of the ravine
Against my round belly
My wet clothes cling
Even in this moment
I feel dis…
Gusting wind pushing me
Hard into the ground
Mud in my teeth
Pulled back to my feet
By the leash of a hound

My mother’s hand
Guides me
Down a steep
Wooded ridge where
We grasp onto a tree
Knee-deep in water
With debris-riddled hair

She wants to protect me
But I’m mad at the world
This storm ain’t got **** on me
Eyes closed
Knuckles curled

I just want to exist
So I wrap my
Fists  around
The throat of God
Call me an exorcist!

A thunderclap
Like a holy slap
Awakens me
From my rage
But my anger is righteous
And will not be assuaged
.
.
Silence for a moment, then
.
.
The air becomes strange
Wet and hot
I feel the chemicals change
In the atmosphere
And within my frame

Fingers of lightning
Pull me into the sky
I spit the mud from my mouth
With a glint in my eye

I’m above the tree line now
And I have no master
Crossing state lines
I am a natural disaster

Every attempt to contain me
Is laid to waste
Every missile fired through me
I consume in haste
Your fear is palpable
My tongue savors the taste

I
Am
The
Tornado
Ignore the warning
On the radio

Because there is
No shelter
My monsoon
Is at your gate
I will tear into your
Palaces of hate
The bones of your disgrace
Broken up like kindling
In my roaring fireplace

The wind from the
Cracked window
Is crisp
As it shivers
Along my
Eyelashes
Then
My lip

This boreal dance
Awakens me
Every morning
Until early spring

As one who hates
The sweat of summer
These brisk mornings
Are my everything

And when winter is birthed
The widow’s crack
It narrows
But never closes
I crave the frozen air
It blossoms something
In me
Like eleven dozen
Fresh roses

i saw a man
who held a garden
in his hand

i watched his
skin break open
like a plot of land

fractured root
sprouting into stem
a bead of blood &
the blossom began

tiny tomato
then two
spiderwebbed
in twine
a pepper grew

the sun shone
(too) brightly
that summer

a culling

razor wire
across the
dermal plane

“bring out
your dead”
she said
her cart
overflowing

i saw him look
back one last
time with
tired eyes

he witnessed a

poison apple
devoured
seeds and all
a new harvest
and a curtain call

as he was wheeled
away he thought
“i once held a
garden in my palm”

&
when the soil
encased him
he recalled
a living room fire
echoes
of a warm
song

a pebble cracking the mirror
skipping across the body
only to sink into
the core

deeper and darker
the riptide

am i alive?
i’m not so sure

why do we
even try to
codify the mystery

an ocean
a fault line
nothing less
nothing more

all of the gravel
disappeared
with a smile

lips smacking
on a foreign
shore
i’m so ******* bored

I once yearned to be close to god. Whispering prayers and ******* through violent pages. Spirituality comes in phases.

Would god look away as I thought of another man’s nectar on my lips? Pooling and dripping from the eclipse of our hips. Would god gasp at the flesh within my grasp? Would god leave me alone in the dark as the seed is spilled into my ark?

I no longer think of god. Or liturgies. Or of words on pages distorted to manipulate through the ages. Turn your eyes from me, oh god. For I am close. Oh my god I’m close. I feel the truth erupt from within and it’s sweeter than fructose.

I’ve touched the heavens. It’s gates are pearls on my chest. Sanctified in sugar. Baptized in a batter of leavened bread. I am holier than I’ve ever been. Prove me wrong when I’m dead.

Somebody wipe the oil from the stone. The bubbling blubber is too thick over the bone. Spare tire. Rubber. But what if I’m four-wheel drive…with enough traction to thrive. I’ve traversed terrain that could **** a ****** of crows. Jet streams and moonbeams guided me home. Cavatappi and pink sauce to thicken my gloss. I don’t need more loss when the grease on the whetstone provides the perfect amount of sharpening. One hundred and eleven shimmering blades on my crown. Every false structure…severed. My enemies bow down. Lapping up the lubrication as my wings are re-feathered.

Can I get
some jas—
mine on my
tongue?

A delicate
thing to buffer
the poison—
ing.

Fill my lungs
with petals s—
oft.

Ring the doc—
tor. Call it
off.

Do not
resuscitate
The night—
shade.

Let her slum—
ber on the
eternal
gate.

Collar my throat and pull until it chokes. Rip me into a smile & hairspray the grin. An aluminum can to lacquer the split ends. “Everything’s fine”, he says. For the love of god, call the guards when I’m carving the walls with my claws. Zip-tie my zealous thoughts and draw my blood. Tap the microphone and read the results. The infection sings like a loon bellowing. Soon I’ll be gone. & with your leash tightening, I scream: “Be wary, my children of the master. His ways are tricky and his fingers are alabaster.”

My Chrysler was a survivor. Hidden piles of broken glass and leather seats split to foam. Summer of ‘99 and sailing down a gravel road named after a tree and a stone. And when we came to a stop, the dust did not. Meanwhile, the radio implores me to get it back 2 good.

I drag my sneakers with white socks pulled up to the shin to the only lonely structure on this stretch of land. A pole building painted ivory and evergreen. It’s mostly empty and smelling of raccoon **** and rusted metal. I grab the machete from the bench and get to work.

My squinted gaze is locked on the acres of horseweed ahead as I dramatically roll my eyes and walk down a freshly mown path. The unending task of the swing and the hack. Piles of severed green. My dad might call this agricultural TLC, but I am feeling very unpretty.

I distract myself from the labor with my Sony Walkman—mustard gold. She’s got EXPMAX technology with 40-second shockproof memory. The headphones move from my sissyneck to my sissyears and I’m pulled by a derelict wind to anywhere other than my own body.

That is, until the blade hits bone. My kneecap is now split in half by a sanguine smile. Its teeth of bubbling fat laugh at how my husky body runs. Its small mouth pouring its way down my calf. My sock, now a magician, is changing colors with effortless conviction.

The panic carries me down the street. Bless the neighbors and their butterfly bandages. Bless the glass of lemonade and a ring to my mother. Bless this memory buried deep under scar tissue purple and pink.

I now realize my first car and I had something in common. All this blood and gristle and glass needed an impact to be set free. Baz Luhrmann told me to be kind to my knees. But I blame it all on the ******* horseweed.

it took but
two whispers
to drop it all
on the cutting floor

no amount of
morse code
can save us now
my sweet

a silver doe
vanishing
in snow

i wipe the sleet
from your cheek
as we hold onto
shards of light
in the dark

three points where
two lines meet

flex your knees

it wasn’t
p r e c i o u s
no pearl

it was cyanide
after ***

a ******
at the end
of the world

The edges of the carol singer’s face soften and fade as I nurse another glass of whiskey like a medic on call to save my tired soul. “I’m going home for Christmas,” escapes my lips with a gentle slur. I board the train. Or was it a plane? No, wait…it was my own **** car. Memory is strange. I glide through my hometown, but I feel like a foreigner now. And when I park in front of my parent’s house, I stare at the pine grove we planted. The tops mingling amongst the cumulonimbus. The frozen garden. Where have all the sweet winds gone? I stay for a few days, but I’m trapped in a deep haze. It’s only been three months since my best friend’s death. I return to my second home. A city of cranes. I belong here, I guess. You see, home is a prism. Light that falls into new spaces and places—warming the cheek for a measure of time. And just like that, a dove hovering amidst the skyscrapers lands upon the scaffolding. A temporary structure. A rest for the wings.

******* this hint of musk. It papers my eyes in polaroids. Drags me by the hair into every dusty corner. ******* sweet from clover until I’m dried up. A clay man cracking in the oven. ******* the burning leaves. Pillow-puff wafts of smoke sneak in through cracked windows. Take my hand, lost boy. Let’s **** the umami autumn into our mouths. Come closer, let me lap it up from your lips while my fingernails tighten into your skull. ******* the summer sun. It boils my shoulders into blister-pop red. A layer of skin piling up on the nightstand after a day in the backwoods. The creek kissed the mud from my toes & exposed a leech…feeding. Later, I cried alone on the bathroom floor when I plucked it like a petal. ******* its pregnant body & everything stolen from me.

i never asked for this
a living tomb of wounds

scrap of fabric
edges too weird
for any pattern to hold
destined to be alone

but i’m okay
no, sincerely i’m fine

swallowed by sad songs
surround sounded bliss
a solitary tear
and ****-eating grin
while *******

is this foundation
made of
salt or sand?
either one ground
between my teeth
hurts
& demands

either one
duned against
the curb
succumbs

everything in its path

no geometry
no math
can undo
the backlash

may the stars
grant us grace

may they forgive us
because we **** at

existing

the strangest
thing

Every single ******* one of you will spruce it up until it’s a bone-thin grin reflecting off the lens. Dress it up like a queen until she’s dragging her heavy pageantry. A millstone into the deep end. But I know every story, every wound, every memory. The grey morning greenway walk. The gimlet at 308 and flamingo manhattan. The soiled cloth sprayed into the porcelain pit. The carnal scent of ******. The animal bones gathered. The hot pink brain splatter from the axe. You can paint the subject as a father, a lover, or a son. But he’s never been more than a stepping stone. Smooth and mediocre. But when skipped across the water, he’s free at dawn.

He stood at the window
Hoodie unzipped
& hair a mess
As the snow fell

He thought
“Wow, you’re a
hundred miles away.
Do you even remember
my name?”

Yours is carved
Deep in my veins

“Can I extract it?”

Pull the power out like
Rolling blackouts
Free for ten minutes
Or maybe it was fifteen

The bewildering crispening of a cold shoulder. A subtle shift of your weight. Like a gearbox and an acceleration. Away from me. This is a freeway. All chaos. With no way back to…us.

Every cell a living thing. Boundless ripples of autonomy. My cell is venom. Birthed to sting. No form of evolution will twist me into something good. Fang me up and set me free. I poison everything. If the universe could shift and reverse. Maybe then I’d find my home. Slurped back into the infinite. A place before the bang of time. Where absolute chaos was not my design.

That green glass bottle resting gently by your sink. A little mist of memories kissing the curve of your neck. You’re cooking in the kitchen. Cardamom. Cinnamon. Your braided belt is on the floor. The one I removed from the loops of your khaki gate. I’m at home in this garden. Please, oh please let me swing in the hammock until I’m old. Here with your majestic oak. Fingers in the coils of your moss. Ginger. Clove. You’re humming into the steam. I sit on the bruised leather sofa and remember how you once climbed up my second-story balcony. A bowl of berries and the cream of your teeth. Fenugreek. Everything fades. Gets pulled away. Coriander. Allspice. Let me taste the nutmeg once more. A small child stares at me because I’m in Target crying over a glass bottle and the man it contains. Paprika smoked into oblivion. Blooded ash on the edge of his drawing on your refrigerator. Inside, I’m rotting like a box of mushrooms you forgot. Behind the bowl of cherries. Cursed by your memory. Salt. Ground chilis.

Eli looks at me while buttoning his shirt and asks: “Where do shadows go when it rains?” I take a sip of communion wine and lift my body from the baptistry. “Here.” My thumb stroking his left chest pocket. Christ, we both know about disappearing acts. He smiles for a moment before a tear unfurls like a ribbon. I kiss his eyes and then we slip out the back. My lips still salt-wet. Where does love live when it’s forbidden? My feet turn the pedals. Eli’s hands are on my waist as we bike into the sunset. Two fallen angels.

The lawnmower idled—a mechanical reprieve. The engine became a dull lull calling me in. My brother left it running while he went inside to ***. My childhood naïveté and this metal monstrosity. Palpable curiosity.

I made my fingers into blades of grass. ****** them into the plastic chute. The ting of metal slowed when striking bone.

****.

I’m bleeding and screaming now.
Running into the house.

A small scar is all that remains.
That and this lesson:
Always keep your distance,
lest you be destroyed.

A rap on the door and a lift to your hip. Heels in your back and that uncontrollable laugh. The summer sun burned holes through our love. It slipped from my fingers like an ill-fitted glove.

I guess you had enough.

Never a door to be knocked again. Never the flames in your eyes. Never grocery shopping and dog walking again. My ankles around your neck…never again…no more.

You abandoned me like your socks on the floor.

The boy was flying high on spells woven through white lines. In the wingspan of nine hundred & twelve days, once forbidden things have RSVP’d…now they are

Knock
Knocking

***** out & draped on the couch—tarnishing every song ever sung.

“Curtis, did you remember to feed the dogs?”

His mind—crossfaded & fried. He tries to summarize with forty-three lies eclipsing the snap of his fragile spine. & then a small smile that breaks your heart for the millionth time.

“I luv you so
much
much”

He proclaims before taking ten men in a Motel 6.

& when the front door opens
& the keys hit the bowl
You're too tired for conflict
So you tuck it away

Besides…
The dogs are okay
You watch Curtis fall asleep
A good end to a sadder day

I’m sorry I was late
But you waited patiently
Then stood tall
In your black leather jacket
I was enamored and
Felt myself
Just a little bit
Fall

Into your grasp
Against the side
Of my car
You raised me
Until my neck
Craned over
The luggage rack

Then into the back
Seat we sprawled
Entwined like
Tasting notes
Of a fine wine

Your touch was
Divine
Your lips
Gracing my spine

You never responded
To my texts
I’m sorry I was late
La Grande Bellezza
Now forgotten
                        forever

Did I once lubricate the sun? I don’t know. But I milked the golden hour before the moon began to devour. Skin stretched thin & bones banging (around). The thrumming drum of a pulse. A flesh sack, flannel-wrapped. I am what remains of a cold sunset. My stretch marks reach to touch places once fuckable, now not. Bacteria bubbling my cheeks. Kiss the peaks & disguise the disgust. I am the cold side of the bed—uncomfortably numb. Amoeba black & skinny jeans in the trash. Concealed in soft matte. Becoming unseen will be my greatest & final act.

The ineffable innocence of a child dancing in fire-smoke. A forest twig plucked becomes a magic stick. The ember tip wisps a spell into existence. But with all of his conjuring, he could not stay the Eateress. Her coal-kissed nails twisting into flesh.

“It’s a burning, breaking thing. This world.”

His eyes look scared, even when they’re smiling. The dirt-curse she wove entwined in his spine. A biting, retching thing. The time has come for new witchery. Seventeen steps into the woods. Six steps back. Turn left. Tracing the rings of Saturn around his skull.

“Make it blacknesses. Make me blacknesses.”

Three fingers to his chest. He talons away some bits of flesh. The blood, lets. He shift-shapes not into a beast, but a carcinoma. Devouring the Eateress from inside and returning to his original form once she has died.

In the following hours, he sits fireside. Pokes a log. Dreams of dancing. And with smoke in his eyes, he cries:

“It's that boy.
Him I want to put my arms around.
To hold him. To hold him.
Chase the scaredness away.”

I see that microphone. She’s pressed to your lips. I watch you sink her deep deep deep into your esophagus. Choke on your ****. Will the crowds cheer when your very own throat…you split? Wide open and soakin’ your southern cross. We are ripping and shredding your hate into floss. Teeth so clean and ready to sing.

You think you can attack my family and hide safely in the weeds? No no no, you silly goose. You’ve dug your own grave. You’ve knotted your own noose. Justice is an arrow already in flight. The soapbox soon to be kicked out from under your feet. Your horror left hanging there…forgotten in the night. A human quiver of self-destruction.

Now please welcome to the stage…they need no introduction. The people who LOVE. The people who LIVE. We will not forget. But maybe. Just maybe. We can forgive.

Screeeech goes the sound of the metal door sliding to a close in a house black as crows. An owl howling—juxtaposed with white earthenware pecked by rainbows. Happy Christmas from the trenches of bone meat and parsley. I’m legs crossed in a quiet corner screaming “cut!” because this strange stage play needs to be noosed. The compactor reeks of trauma pressed too neatly. Coats piled on the floor with salted mistletoe. A savory kiss from the host as she clack clack clacks her dentures. A hand not to be slapped, but severed—falling onto the feast table. A crack of pepper. The guests scream as apples tumble from the backyard tree. Quickly wheeled away to conceal all of the rotting. You see, the morning sun in Harmon insists on licking a clean lawn. But this boy is a dawn renegade with a fistful of fuel. And when I unearthed your heart, I set it aflame. Cranberries in my smile, while the black house burns.

the dust never settles
it compounds and
pounds on my door

(like)

wine that’s
been decanted
only to be poured
on the floor

i don’t know how
to unmaster the
lock

fumbling with keys
upon keys
i keep circling the
same block

always back to
the porch light’s
warm glow

from a home
i’ll never
(again) know

the villain in
this story
he exists to
sustain her
glory

(all the while)

she fills
her chalice
staining them
(all)
with regret
& malice

the projector whirs
a soft hum
while the film spins
into oblivion

a moment too soon
as the blade is ******
into the blooming
heart of the moon

meanwhile, it’s rock candy
hard edges with a crystalline
white-*** man proclaiming:

“the miracles of old, you know
they don’t happen anymore”

the crusty man &
a crowd of dim eyes
cry ten thousand tears
into the dying light
of hades flames
& the glamour of
gabriel’s smile

heaven & hell
intertwined like
*** on the shoreline

all dark
all light

split the bone
& make a wish
my limited sight
erased with a
silver kiss

The ice cube cracked when kissed by a tepid spirit in the glass. A small triumphant sound to mark the first time his tongue tasted scotch and the lips of another man. A clarinet sleeps on the shelf while the crystals continue to melt. Like the bodies on the couch. Two piles of paint swirling into a color he’s never seen. This is a milonga. A gathering of souls. Forever fleeting.

Brace for impact because I’m coming home. Slam dunked into the veins of ancient loves. The dog is dead. Just a skeleton of unspoken things in a backyard cemetery. What did the military teach you, John? You can buy up the cable news, but you can’t rewrite history.

You can bury your lavender lips under the leaves of the world, but you can’t erase the ***** stains. They remain.

Buckle up because I’m on your doorstep. Ten tons of faggotry on your front lawn. Tell your daughters to look away. Because daddy’s mistake is here to stay. It’s Christmas of ‘23 and the trees are a choir of yesterday. We share this memory. Thrown from your embrace on the ATV—my tailbone cracked the ice. I cried. But the pain was bearable because your rosebud blossomed only for me.

Look at us go. A gang of four awkward-toothed boys dragging our red bread wagon around. Hometown heroes with bouquets of flour. For a little green, you can slice the cellophane. Yeast in your nose and warm butter dripping.

Biking down Delaware. Left on Broad. Autumn’s vermillion blanket on the ground. John Deere and Orson Welles. Maybe in some fanfiction they were ******* behind the Casey’s General Store. Turning the soil to bury secrets. There’s an art in that. The rottweiler’s snarl is pulled back inside as the door closes.

My cousin lost an eye and I saw it floating in a jar like a marble on his nightstand. When it snowed I wondered if he only saw half of the flakes.

Before you left we each took a sharpie to a dollar bill: “FRIENDS 4 EVER”. Thirty years later it’s still tucked away in a little white box with a Michael Jordan valentine and mirrored blue marble. Something plucked from my childhood and I only remember half of it.

I found an old letter I wrote to you. November 8, 1993. 11:24 a.m. Nineteen minutes after my grandmother died.

“I miss you and hope that I can come visit sometime”

That winter was lonely. I climbed our sledding hill in my moon boots and as I looked across the tundra, I thought: I’m the last hometown hero.

“Ever since you left things have been pretty boring around here and I’ve been stuck in my house reading books”

I flew down that hill in my plastic saucer. The wind pulling every tear from my eyes.

“My pictures are in the envelope, when you write me a letter please write neatly”

When my sled hit the curb on Ridge Road I swear I kept flying. I’d say I never looked back, but that’s all I’ve been doing these days.

Blood red mother, hold me close. Let my pain transfer to your hem. Hold me. Hold them. When the foolish men pray for the dead to rise. Shield me from their lies. Make them cease. May the car crash victims find their peace.

Blood red woman, hold me tight. When the bike tire meets the t-bar and the skull greets it too. Rubies poured from his head. I think he thought he was dead. Hold him with a hymn. Cool the panic. A crown of jewels. Paramedic.

Blood red saint, hold me fast. Don’t hate my future or romanticize my past. Your womb, she blessed you. Is there a blessing left for me? A son who’s not your son. Bleeding out on the lawn. Let it be.

I’m not sure if Mercury was in retrograde or if Sega was in genesis, but you slipped an unwelcome touch into my orbit & I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it.

The Proclaimers hummed in the background as the aunties shrugged…

“Some people are born with tragedy in their blood.”

The nooseman approaches & with surrender on my lips, I say: “Sew me into the creases of your hemlocked hood.”

Tiny holes cut for beady gapes.
Do. Not. Look. Away.

The moon is wailing in chorus with mothers & brothers in hidden crypts over mountains of headless children born into snake pits.

800-588-2300…EMPIRE…today is the day we set you on fire. More cobra with desire until you suffocate on centuries of soul weight.

The ground opens up & the universe obliterates.

A spare bedroom tea set gathers dust in shadow of craven lust for more & more & more. The **** of a boy & the **** of the world. Holy rage steeped to liberation. Comrades healing together with blades unfurled.

No longer will we cower & beg for a piece of what’s already ours. The serpent’s spine rotting on concrete.

All hail the death of tyranny.

Blood flooded my cheeks at 5 am. A frozen farewell kiss from Saint Joe while I’m scraping snow from my window. Shield me from the crushing pain, I think to myself. My brother waves.

And off I go.

In this new chapter, a stranger is singing in the shower. His cat shedding everywhere. The beasts of the southern wild are howling at the fireworks outside. Because they just want to crawl into a quiet corner and die. Peacefully. Like little bodies in sleeping bags. These makeshift beds were the beginning of the end.

I digress.

I’m a roommate now. A divorcee. And when he’s out working I’m alt-j laundry loading and making a snack. As if some chèvre and crackers could ever muster the gusto to drop-kick this depression attack. Can’t afford the meds so I grab a coffee with a philosopher. That should do the trick.

Nope. I got Žižeked to death.
What a mess.

I drive back home just to have you put your back N 2 it. And when you try to tongue and groove me, I recoil. Your ******* cat coughs up a hairball when you kick me out. Then he looks up with cloudy eyes and I realize: OkCupid is a terrible place to find a housemate.

Beginners mistake.

We candled up the country road at dusk. An attempt to stretch the glow of the sun past its expiration. We laughed when the sparks withered. Then rallied and piled the heat into the backseat. The twilight on your crooked teeth. Lines less defined than the stallion I longed to ride. In my mind. I saddled and straddled the curves of your spine.

Forbidden dreams aching like curdled cream. You’d think it would wet the wick, but instead, ignited the stick. Someone call 911. I’m done like the sun. Bury me in the horizon. Ring the Fire Marshall and squelch the flames.

I am
u n t a m e d .

Finished by the hands of a Roman god. I’m far too dazed to notice the field ablaze. Scars carved into the charred limbs of the trees we planted. They tell how we survived. I’m lost in the brilliance of your summer skin. Your sweat, a song. Every drop a chord plucked…singing and begging for my licking. A forest of treasure. Your morel, my pleasure.

Dirt-poor and Balbriggan born
Into the arms of a mother
No longer breathing

Raised by a stone-hearted
Man with a catholic core
Finnian’s soul was gentle
As his ship left the port

He flirted with death
And French boys
Sipping on
Cigarettes and skin
In the alleys of cafés

He found a home
In Marseille

Less of a home, more
A small rented room
With a bed for a
Half dozen men
To break his heart

In a small mirror
By the window
Of his room
He sees the decades
On his face

Time is not
A boon

His glass overflows
With homeland spirit
As he raises it up
To the night sky
With just enough
Air in his lungs for
An Irish goodbye

You wince. Wave your tears like a flag. Weeping for the hellfire perceived to lick me up. But let me tell you daddy-o…I’m a snack. Your nightmare of a son. A ****-*******, pearl-clutching heart attack.

The shape of me is still here.

The one you taught to bait a hook & reel in a catch. There are two worlds whose shoulders brush. A bobber in a still pond & a broken back. Frog legs in a bag, battered & fried. The other fathers cried. A ****** mess.

The shape of me is still here.

Mutilated, yes. Kissing the flame & wiping the wet from your eyes. Can you comprehend? Have you even tried?

He was lost in the second verse when a hand settled softly on his chest. & if he knew then what he knows now, he’d see it not as gentle. Not as sweet.

He would’ve leapt from the sill of his second-story window if only to feel less perishable.

He’d mind the gap when boarding the train. Calmly staring out the window at the syrup sunset & a longhorn-shaped hole. A matador, too slow.

But it was the love J didn’t feel when holding him that sent him screaming down the street. It wasn’t serene. It was wet with love-deth.

&
d e a f e n i n g .

The chorus hit like an ice pick when the white car pulled up to drag his body away. The berbere dream euthanized and preserved in a jar. On display for strangers to gawk.

The lord’s voice snuck in quiet that summer like a locker room **** peeking out from the hem of a t-shirt. A whispered taunt. An alter call. Lift the fabric and taste the skin. Feel the blood engulfing. The secret hunt for mushrooms. Hallucinations of arched spines in the deep end of the pool. Communion wine on my chin and the wafer of your body on my tongue—dissolving. My position…kneeled. The peacock’s wail. Riding ******* in an open field.

The world softens as the jackals tear into gray matter. A pound of flesh? Take twenty. Saran wrapped and gasped with elastic tongues releasing. Maybe I shouldn’t eat? Crawl across the floor. Starving. The repulsion neatly packed into too many to-go containers. Buy one, get one free. Clamshells waiting silently for a low tide feast.

Grandmother clock longing to tock. Her second hand pleading to sweep the face. Graze the six or touch the twelve. It had been a long stretch of silence since the lithium drained.

Grandfather bottle is empty too. He hit that babysitter like the side of a parked car. The chrome finish—split. It had been a long stretch of time since he avoided a headline.

Son long gun hanging on the wall. Displayed like the prey he sprayed with powder. A face unrecognizably rouged with bits slipping down the drain. It had been a long stretch of night since he loved his own blood.

Father three candles on a window sill. A distance spread like an animal hide. Brittle to the touch—no formaldehyde. He reaches into the moonlight, but it had been a long stretch of days since the flames touched his meager face.

Mother/daughter save us with your grace. A gentle tick of forgiveness like the unnumbered  hours in this temporal place. We do what we can & then try again in this vacuum of humanness & deep void of space.

“i’m sorry
for promising
more than i was
ready to give”
he said
& then
shook my
******* hand

i’m too broken
too much to bear

so string me up
on a fence
& staple to my chest
a warning

“you deserve better”
another one claims
as he pulls away

my damage
sets fire to the chorus
chokes the refrain

if
one
more
man
says
“i can’t give you
what you need” . . .

it’s going to be
a fuckawful
s   c   e   n   e

now, i’ve come
to accept
& wholeheartedly
concede

i am a ripe
swollen shape
so give me
deep space
or make it fatal
when the next
hammer swings