kingsoftrain

[salutations for daughter]

dear pilot of my father’s animal

dear tree
the ahistoric
ghost

dear space
blood

~

[On looting]

we move the cemetery to confirm there is nothing outside of this town. the strip club remains a two man show. leash laws are for dogs and angels. our doctor has a touch of deer worry. exercise is for the birds. god is the pitter patter of imagined feet. our fathers double over in bathrooms from the shame of not calling out for paper. our mothers have done the math. by now, most kids have eaten a popsicle alone in a church. I’m in it for the stick.

~

[daughteresque]

what would she ask
sadness

that old blindfold
from the future

how did you
get old, how

did my father
eat
and eat
at the same

time

perhaps
you’ve seen it
the mask
that took

my face

~

[take]

tonight, I stole two beers from my brother

two gods
whose vexations
share
a city

I am still not sure
what I’ve requested

asylum
or sanctuary

I don’t pray

I read a book to see a man do nothing

to see a man do nothing to a woman
I volunteer
for sleep
studies
and read
this back

to the lord

~

[scarecrow and the lottery]

I can’t make heads or tails of your fervor. I can’t make body. I put a hole in my father and through it watch my mother eat her weight in god. I want what my siblings have. each other, game shows, memory. indigenous amnesia.

~

[energies]

my father snaps his shovel stealing snow from our travel-addicted neighbor. his mute sister’s last confession is a first. his doctor brother’s dollhouse is a hospital. television is a byproduct of my mother’s human longing for animals. if my arms were healed, I’d keep the baby from swatting its penis. I call my next trick rabbit sorrow.

~

[the butcher]

most babies here are born without a trigger finger.

but some
get through.

~

[water that sister moves a net through]

brother masturbates with an almost invisible dedication.

mother
yells
from the river

that all rain
is highway
robbery.

while reciting
proverbs
for mitochondria
I pass the time
wearing
my father’s
shoes

for the footsteps
in his head.

~

[sleeps (i)]

my daughter is seized by a dream to endure her mother’s preoccupation with death. while waiting for his pillow’s heart to stop, my son resolves to keep the mirror’s brain. that each might skip the parts I’ve memorized, I read to them from a room I’ve put on the spot. when we pray, we’ll pray we were here to the idea we are.

~

[epicene]

I had
all year
one
idea

–

the infant is forever in the infancy of immediate hearsay

–

I was online / had a nosebleed

–

I was with your mother when she safely evacuated
many

from nothing’s
installation

–

you may

in event
of god

instill in my sons

the all
clear

~

[iraqi sleep]

I bury the carnival fish. my neighbor pretends he is casting while my son sucks on the opening of a plastic bag. I take the bag and blow into it then pop it on my palm. my neighbor’s heart is safe but he tries to grab it anyway. the vietnam war is a pop-up book of the vietnam war.

~

[lament]

infants
by nature
are cryptic.

beset by symbols of worry, parents

become clear.

draw for me
a bomb shelter.

name those already there.

~

[capsuling]

mark my words, wrist

–

with god
as my impression

mark

insomnia

–

the mood was very bloody, the mother invented

sex
to scare
the kids, the mother

drank
cologne

–

I keep having the same baby

it comes
with a dream

~

[women in fiction]

after punching me in the stomach
my brother
would put his hands
behind his back
and ask
the fish
in the bowl
under my shirt
to forgive
little miss
handcuffs
for making
god

~

[notes for eggshell]

beneath the tethered astronaut of his dream

the impossible boy
misses

something small

the human ear, its recent
brush
with whale

~

[identity]

no longer
a god
the male
finds mother
hard
to worship

–

I am
what I imagine

eaten

–

who the eyes

undress
in Eden

~

[memorial]

the dog moves from sun to shade

its master writes of the beating
a woman
takes

I saw
I can prove it

the size of that tick

does anyone
remind me
to eat

~

[memorial (ii)]

the boy
whose first
computer
was pain

they put something in his food
to make
him drink…

–

one animal
out of how
many

–

marries

–

to avoid
god

~

[memorial (iii)]

memory
has nothing
it remembers
making

–

I’ll know an animal when god sees one

–

the guard
I slept with
gave me
you

–

pain, indicia, Amen

 

~

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad