kingsoftrain

 

On mother, father, god, dog, pussy

what if the eyes in the back of my head

hallucinate

what if
the eyes in the back of my head

during surgery

during

a haircut

~

On foreclosure

the occasional declawed cat
past which
I make
like I
am rowing

(in wheelbarrow) (in wagon) otherwise,

noises beneath a bomb or bomb
threat

~

On the past

my life

four children
drinking water
from glasses placed on either side
of my sleep-

it is on these nights
when I am sick
that I become the sound of my ears
softening
my mind’s
thoughtless position
on time, that I am ably

here, ably slow

full view
of the aging

marksman

~

On phobia

as I refuse

(to enter
the ocean)

I’m pretty sure god has put my death in a bug

~

On the need for a watchlist

if one can talk of it, one is most likely not poor. we called you to life to give you a name. god became the man men wanted to be. god wore a dress he could see through. a short history of heaven made its way to hell to have its location shared. your mother developed a stutter. your fake cry took on a depth of meaning made us dip

(psalm
for satellite)

into your brother.

~

On paternity

as his mother has heard only yesterday how he was born to some nobody that everyone can describe, she instructs her barber to slide a lit cigarette behind her ear. as unimportant as the barber is, his pencil makes a subtle change in her dream of putting a cricket on the witness stand.

~

On my son having little to no vision

I am on count eight of ten-

ten, the future.

I call you raindrop,
your hiding place

water

–

staring contest-

the only child and the twin, then

the lonely
victor

~

On decompression

the zombie movie about buzzards. the hours that go undetected in the parents of forty-eight special needs children.

~

On lore

I have two dreams of running into the newly pregnant late bloomer. in the first and most recurrent, I am operating a remote control car I’ve lost while worrying about a brother’s closeness to a certain pilot. in the second, my mother is talking lights out to nostalgia’s previous owner who agrees with her that the roofs of buildings need to be smaller. in both, I get the sense my father has already hit the pop fly under which he collapsed muttering baseball, baseball, ghost of a baseball.

~

On suicide

I was here long before you guessed my age

–

(our proverbial sister dons again the birthday suit of body language)

–

the dog won’t eat. might it know

we come from the family of sitting and dying?

~

On contact

hold kitten
like a rifle. pop

a paper sack
at your father’s

ear. ah, your father

who was made to kneel

for two
maybe three
things

(god, shrapnel) a flying saucer

from the wreckage of his church

~

On writing

my sense of place is a person. sex is odd,

right? this thing that auditions

for what it has.

~

On sex

a ghost
in love
with a paintbrush

this ankle
not
from memory

~

On birthmarks

and the glacial
pace
of god

~

On heaven

keeper
of fields, clean

destroyer
of rooms
where the boys
of murdered
women
single out
a spirit
for doll

crisis…

–

the world of the reminiscing
earth

~

On pain 

I injure
on my own
my right
hand
to give
the left
I was born

with

a break

/ wonder
whose hands
does father
have

~

On having a secret mother

the boy is lacing up his right shoe
when he sees
the string
tied
to his middle
finger
and wonders
how asleep he was
when it happened-

(being forgotten
is a lot like
being forgotten
by) harm, that purple balloon

lowered into
then surrounded
by

the inactive
construction site
of the world

~

On libido

the previous verse was a poor man’s bible. like wildfire a fondness for appropriate discipline spreads. one scarecrow means practice, two scarecrows mean parentage. a third is your father’s failed garden of baby teeth. is, by definition, is. I are

motherless. what mother doesn’t know doesn’t worry. many spiders came on the wind and a few were swept into mouths briefly opened by age. what made woman did not make the disappearing girl. flashing back to a scene that’s not there or forward to one dependent on space, pain arrives

in memoriam.

~

On devastation

brother, there’s not a cigarette

on earth
that you
can surprise

~

On supervision

you may have been a child
projecting a maze
or an adult
memorizing
the hollowness
of things.

in a condensed version
of poverty’s
obstacle course
I still hold the hammer
that works for a mirror…

with dog or with dogs, we were presented
as two examples
of how to be
family.

I love me a farm machine
and the week
you knock yourself into.

(a silo
saddens
a drunk)

~

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.

~

On my father being gay

a crow
born inside
a footstep
is passing
for dark