{okay with}

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~

some older, some edits, some there:

~

[disburden]

god went from wall to wall unaware he was god disguised as a graffiti artist. renderings of my son on a ventilator adorn the moving city. the homeless are tattoos that remove themselves. I guard the outlying cross and go through the motions again of nailing to it the same madman. my only tool is comfort. in flight, a wasp carries something it’s not.

~

[sequestration]

a person goes dark. night shifts disappear. a lone panic capsizes the anatomically correct. men fill up on mouthwash. men float. women bite their tongues in half before they can say women and children. insomnia becomes more than the over-hyped novelization of insomnia. a boy draws a cutlass in a broom closet and is told he can’t sleep. I begin to want more from a diagnosis. a kite being flown in hell by a son gone pro.

~

[hermit wages]

to a baby’s swing
or to a fine horse
with one
good
ear
or to the weary
haymakers
that are now
my mother’s
unkissable
arms

my father
his head full
of hot soup
but not a minnow
burned
recites
the toy
gospel

as I begin
to take
my intelligence
personally
here among

the floored laundry, the raised unawareness

of the powerless mad

~

[the gentle detail]

in the time it took
his daughter
to soap
her brother’s
cradle cap

the man
was able
to lose
an entire hand.

every now
and now
he corrects me
with a puppet.

there is no place
where nothing should be.

~

[repeat after women and children]

new
to his arms
his anxiety

–

wrongheaded
toddler
goes

for swim

–

outside the prison
some tattoos
and some
hunger

and some dog’s
unique
bark

–

his voodoo doll, its tracking

number

–

forgiveness?

that thing from your past

~

[instances of man and boy]

you haven’t touched your food.

when jailed
I thought of nothing
but my cell
and I thought of my cell
as heaven
to a crib.

your mother’s dark hair
is hard to swallow.

I am secretly happy
that you’ve taken
an egg

for each day of your life

to a doll
so doll
can sleep.

as your mother, I often follow
a black
ball of yarn

into the lake
of how
you remember.