when drought came
to my brother
I left
for the city
where I found myself
blanketing
manhole covers
with my coat
for women
who gathered
on rooftops
with men
whose daughters
had been killed
for jumping
rope
the knock knock joke in need of my father’s skull is all that’s left of the outside world. hell was always the preparing of hell.
with a clear
head
I wash
my hands
in the dark
and spread
the fingers
of one
into the absence
of my father’s
glove
where
the fingers
of my other
had died
for the knuckles
mother’d
liken
to a puppet’s
ribs
bottom line, I’m not sharing a cell with god’s emotionally phantom parrot
I bit my tongue
when my tongue
was a cloud.
take cover, bones,
says my daughter
dancing.
I crushed my son
like a gift
and offered
god
my tactile
outlook.
stay small, future.
persuade
a peephole
to show
some blood.
in his shorter
life
the father
accepts
a remembered
total
of two
persons:
the dry humper of the drowned.
the maker
of astronaut
oars.
kingsoftrain 