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.
I am at my skinniest
asleep
it wasn’t my dog
put the rabbit
shot
from its mouth
back
in its mouth
but
I was lonely
from seeing
things
I made for an action figure a family tree. my mother came apart in the doctor’s hands. my smallness entered the smallness of my god. a side effect of facial recognition.
a spider can take its home to heaven
–
it is my goal
to be sicker
than my son
–
have the baby
trying
to be had
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
speech itself is a failed translation
dreaming is a farm
a mother
makes it as far
as mailbox
bear
to fish
there’s water
in the water
is, today’s mousetrap
tomorrow’s
shoe
[notes for night owl]
a brother wets the bed
is reminded
of age, the number
of kissable
girls-
in another life, he has
this one
there is no
imagining
of his
surprise
[forgeries]
permanence is upon us.
one who paces.
predator
that I never took
for god.
–
on the inside
the predator
I attacked
personally
became the world
where the window
into the world
of hazing
opened.
–
in infancy
I possessed
a belonging.
I started smoking in my early thirties because I missed my brothers. because a train is the only thing I can act like I’ve seen before. because a claw opened and a child dropped. because unhurt the child was a girl and injured it was a boy made of being touched. because giant birds were stoned to give other people rain. because all hail, as all do, location. because riot then riot envy. because bright spot became a cloth in a police car. because I can’t sleep and couldn’t without thinking of sleep as a copy of a copy. because lost the baby wasn’t getting any younger. because nightlight and tadpole, mom and dad.
not one thing
has the devil
made a satellite
do
