the anxious god of my brother’s mirror
said
to me
trees
don’t grow
on trees.
it can’t all be nonsense.
shoes are being made
for the born.
no one
was fooled
by your
suicide. more and more
I am more
alone
than the baby
machine. we touch
touch
via
[On devastation]
brother, there’s not a cigarette
on earth
that you
can surprise
[On my father being gay]
a crow
born inside
a footstep
is passing
for dark
I play my father as a man terrified I’ll return
no trick to being poor.
the beauty of our entire football team
sleeping
with the same
person
equals
that of mother
saying
that she can feel
god’s head
touching
every hair
on hers. I can hear
my dreams
over
the soundman’s
perfect
fly
bursting
in my brother’s
ear. never
did I have
an idea
come
to me.
I wouldn’t worry. I myself didn’t walk until I’d put everything on the floor in my mouth. even then, my right leg would sometimes fill with my left. dad would warn me about bumping my head and mom would remind me to make him hungry. anyway, I told your kid I don’t know how to read but the truth is reading makes me want to see two women fight. I blame my brother. some people have the attention span of satan.
to slow the scarring of god, the man spits into a can plucked from the river that washed his hair.
to hasten
the woman
shaves
her mirror’s
head.
you’re part of a story you don’t have to tell.
the animals that took your feet are dead now.
my boy
pushed your boy
into something
we thought
we’d outgrow.
mittens on
it’s time
to eat.
stick people
their hands
are lonely
at the same
time
–
in my son’s stomach
is something
from your seashell
collection
no matter how much I touch him
he’ll be touched
more, it is not real
–
but it is
the christ
balloon
in this context, we are rednecks for free association. we worship the male witness of the bone burying dog. we wander from working televisions to say amen and to call it typical the baby’s behavior. god is a perfectionist. fasting a weight class. we have each of us a bad hand briefly that drops a baseball. our bald spots pass as bite marks beneath squirrels in the priesthood of sleep. there’s meat but we’ve had better.
brother drinks water enough to shock the devil. on the inside, he’s all doll. I shake him for show might our sisters travel in pairs. I used to talk but had to close my mouth when the soft spot on his head kept my mother from her toes. it’s the second stone that really lands.
kingsoftrain 