kingsoftrain

father paints an abstract jesus. my sister bites at the shoulder strap of her bra. my brothers

to keep from crumbling
are sharing
bread.

–

I draw a violinist. a dog

at the neck of its owner.

–

in our imaginings
gutted baseballs

became

the skulls of small animals
through which
the wind

called heads.

–

in heaven’s garage
they’ve yet
to make
a horn
that works.

the kids have gone two or three years now without being raised.

the match
unlit
by your tooth
is paradise.

–

a refrigerator rocks in a junkyard.

either the door has jammed, or she

is pregnant.

–

a cement wall
scraped
in passing
by one
with a stick
is the love
we have
for father

–

depression is a dog whistle. I miss dinner sounding it out.

–

(when a scar of thunder / outs itself / I am blue)

or bluish

(like a sock in a blue
coat’s
pocket)

–

it is cruel to hang anything above a baby’s crib

–

I can only guess
I was happy
in the womb
with how
my mother
looked

–

the bunk
above mine
I call
deathbed

is

my brother’s-

he has
his own
way
of thinking

showerhead
is spotlight

–

here is a test: circle
the parts
of a circle

(a sameness)

in the parrots
we care for…

our suicides
fight
for position

–

in the apple
air
of hem
and haw
a pacing
uncle
blank
as a broom
regards
the lovemaking
half
of a doorknob

or

two men
carry a ladder
past a cemetery

one thought
between them

–

this nonfiction
not
what you’d
imagined

–

mother an artifact of paranoia

–

paper
scissors
milk

–

blacktop
pools
at the neck

of a crow.

half eaten
children
limp
home.

an umbrella. a bra. a harp.

a street we call satan.

–

water, make your fist. hold your breath
in a single
fish.

–

delirious
when the lights
went out
mother
would pull cocoons
from the oven
tell us
to stop
kicking

–

it was a very strong soap
she’d use

a soap that squealed
against

the skin

her heart
a hiccup’s
echo

her eyesight the sound of a drill

her eyes
two holes
in a turtle’s
shell

her eyes for seeing

the food in her mouth

–

the sobbing ventriloquist was my idea. mother and father they were taking turns moving shampoo through my hair as I hummed. doom was a color. a mare kneeling on a bed of maroon straw. miles off, an ambulance driver entered a silent film and tried to buy a garage door opener.

–

children from abusive studio apartments inherit warehouse jobs from problem immigrants. a bruise of urine darkens the front of your jeans. I am mugged in your dream and mugged in mine and mugged by a woman in both. for now, this field. my gestural father holding a broom for what he calls the welcome mat

of exodus. in memory alone I am alone.

–

under crow
and flat
on my back
in the loft
of my uncle’s
barn
my shadow
is still
she
who upright
confessed
so loudly
that her heart
flew
into a quiet
sky
as she
collapsed

–

on television
the world’s smallest ghost town. on a shadow

socks match

–

no longer graveyards, I tend what is everywhere resting. I crawl like a toothache, long with her death. the voices move from head to mouth.

a squirrel on fire. an act of god.

I don’t think seeing such things is enough to put

vague
& crow
into one bed. she is asleep

or fingered
by a man
with seven.

–

in a country store
a barefoot girl
walks on her heels-

long stride and baby.

the store’s owner
happily shelves
popcorn, gauze

the thought of his father
doing nothing.

–

beating my clothes
with me
in them
mother
irons
a man
from the moon

(who giggles in us poorly)

for love

–

if my father admits in his bed that some mice are alive when he bends
to the earth
a cornstalk
and lets
fly,

I have to find the mouse
that means
other mice.

–

wish I could dream away the bad mornings spent cheating on her sadness

–

illness, assault.

presence
a blank
petition

–

in the end my mother was mostly an ocean dipped into by lightning.

a mother whose hands were broken by recent events. events that evoke transcription.

–

assault:

maid
loses cart
to stairwell

–

illness:

a birthmark, a scar, and a tattoo

eating under
a blanket

years back I met god in some nowhere town before I was born to teach symbolism.  I know what room I’m in by the tv show my mother’s watching.  dear ghost, I hope you like the parrot.  from what word did letter come.  existence mourns non.  grieve on sight.

a birthmark
is a churchgoing
scar

I clip her nails
whose doll collects
cereal boxes

for JP

running with my brother
those three miles

seconds
kept
by a watch
of salt

the bland
sons
of distance

the names

of the born
between

we bid
in Ohio
on a pack
of condoms
dropped
by the invisible
man.

birth approaches its black stoplight.

in clothes
that fit
I feel
remembered.

keep the baby

eats
during thunderstorms

the evil was mine, the face wasn’t. some were delivered by one who wore a monster mask.

the smallest mouth guard. viruses

transmitted
by dream

close by, a man is relearning how to cradle his corrected son.

my luck
the alien
I saw
was disabled