a birdwatcher with broken hands, I am the cry of my mother’s body. she climbs the tree she was left in and smokes back the years of breathing underwater. whatever you’ve been through, this poem waited for me to survive.
one cannot love the ocean
without asking an orphan
to be
specific.
I tell my words
to use
my poems.
father he quotes
echo. his shadow
a short story
by ghost.
hit your children. my own, I love the way they look
before I don’t. every shadow
leaves its post
have kissed the ear
of a small
boy
they do not
love
whose voice
eats bread
through a mask…
have scored their grief
as inefficient
sadness, and accepted
bowling balls
from three-fingered
men.
I cured my son
in another
language
that of a perfect child
born
to draw
a circle-
doorbell, house of nothing
I would look in the mirror to see if people knew I was ugly and maybe now my son does the same. in mine, god had no soul. in his, god’s soul has nowhere to go. I love you. I don’t matter. I love you and I don’t matter.
–
if I could go back in time, I’d help her take care of me
the person
who reports
photos
missing, my sockless
brother, the tooth fairy’s
bones
“Probably I’ll die like this,
a long time ago.” – Franz Wright
I will never forget hearing god pronounce your name
to a ghost obsessed with wolves
out there in the dogness
in a home
for animals
that have tried
to undress
she weighs
the child
and the child
the doll
