someone’s been using my toothbrush. the neighbor’s baby is all stomach. dad is burying the leash of a balloon animal. the church has come out as being against my mom’s spacesuit. brother bows to loneliness like a rhino before a scarecrow. my toothbrush is blue. tell god we’re away.
for Brian Dawson
I learn early on in the poem
that god can hear an insect
cry. how terrible.
there’s more-
we lose electric and fumble on all fours for the hand of a sockless toddler. bible of the dream-free spider.
it is heard underwater that there have been recent innovations in childlessness
the chain-smoker’s
projected
backstroke
we put your favorite chair in your favorite place to stand. you are still as human as the suppression of appetite. people drift in and out of weird dogs that your brothers call grief and your sister the aliens that remember god.
daughter leaves behind her short films on separation anxiety. the baby likes all three of its cribs. I return again to the last thing god made. what being can death thank for the memories?
