radio apostle
4 the other children have to forfeit their inheritence
I
the first time
I came back to life
was in 1980.
I awakened
head a blue
labyrinth
trapped in sound—
a grotesque clutter:
the meep-meep of a
cartoon bird
sticky flock
of children
screeching
in the courtyard.
Then a voice
(voices?)
I did not
recognize:
the ruined gasp
emerging from
within
my cutoff throat.
I unwrapped
the telephone cord—
how long had I been
down?—skull
fever-pounding
from the blackout,
body feathered in sweat.
I listened
to the room,
felt the rush
& shuffle
of my heart—
a felled finch.
Lavender shock
of resurrection.
Lucky my dad
was not awake
to find me there—
his radiant little
death inventor
with X’d-out eyes,
a halo of birds
circling my dome.
Lucky to have
outlived this
unripened error.
Can you imagine it?
A child standing
at the mouth
of the underworld
pleading
for a time-out,
trying to reason
with whatever’s
in charge:
No, no! I never
meant to stay dead.
I simply wanted
a sweeter life.
a brief biography of the poet’s mother
There was
a child
hemorrhaging
light,
the blue song
of her brain,
an early maggot
writhing.
Her mother,
a jealous
newlywed,
with looking-glass
hands & a tub
full of bleach
thieved & thieved
until the child
became
a quiet room
a silence born
of interrogated
flesh.
Girl is the worst season.
Mother no guarantee.
No clothes or meat,
no heavy tit wrecked
with milk.
So the blue song
became a dirge,
