my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

There is so little left of the tomato plants.