brother peace and brother quiet
dot
the same
neck.
so far, my hands have remembered being hands.
if on a balloon
a face
is drawn
you too
can call
it sister
whose dolls
have biblical
names.
sometimes
you’re awake
and your son
is awake
and neither
of you
believe
in sickness
the raccoon
mask
of sickness…
no god unkissed, no dirt…
and sleep, sleep
is a priest
whose hilljack
blood
favors
the cult
of the noiseless
ant
naked, I photograph your bed.
it takes me where I stand
the low joy
of jumping
rope.
birth has become a boys club.
I can weigh two things
with what
you broke.
not a thing born
nor a thing
howled at
no
you are not
again
these things
the baby
it continues
to purple itself
where it can
it crawls, but is mostly stunned
by its own
vocabulary
the dog has the tongue of a cat
this is new
the child, the loneliest
reconciliation…
–
it is not quite suicide, not quite
career
–
sorrow’s racket,
as in
a deer
in the path
of an oncoming
deer
–
son I carry
no one’s
blood
boy spotless, wrecker of the invisible home. oh mother, scrubber of the radar’s blip.
i.
king of my mouth. king of my open. my legs
my cigarette
legs.
the end of my arms in baby country.
ii.
the start of my hands
their coat-hook
anxiety.
iii.
here is where the child was killed for being here.
why is a spider
not
a place?
iv.
the future, the uphill
the biked
body
most boats
dream of.
v.
the future
an evoked
salvaging.
as overcome as I was to be gifted a hospital gown, I had nothing on the angel whose brain / for visiting the eye / was banished…
we are the dead
we’re here
to return
[themes for contact]
mid-cigarette
my sister
remembers
to smoke.
god hops
in place
on one foot.
most of our health
is rabbit
health.
not for nothing
the look on your face
boy
when you’ve nowhere
to put a baby.
also,
the drawings that didn’t make the bible.
~
[neonate]
I named you once before you were born and once after. your room was blue for so long. you’d kick and I’d press my thumb to your father’s wrist. my hand is still wet from putting jesus as a baby beneath a nervous goldfish. I know what happens to people like me.
~
[input]
I am the photo my visions take.
high
on memorization
the mother
has to believe
in god
for god
to have
a safe
word.
the boy is dirt and noise. is hindsight’s
gospel.
loneliness, meet maker.
~
[I miss you]
when younger
than sex
but older
than grief
my greatest
ambition
was to give
context
to the left hand
applauding
despair.
now, what I do
for grief
is translate
a passage
from one language
to the same.
[wonders]
she is a location
policed
by a trauma
that never
returns.
that’s a mouthful
on a first
date
but she is far
from photographing
roadkill.
still, she hears
it said
in sister
and in health…
/ she starts with a boy
who becomes a clown
getting
his pilot’s
license
on borrowed
time. what she knows
by number
is the single
highway
truck
that doesn’t
come.
her father is just
as she imagines-
a man
not making
siren
sounds
pulled over
by the man
who is.
she fucks
with her troubled
flashlight.
