Painstaker
Poems
Jeffrey Galbraith
Painstaker
Poems
Copyright © 2017 Jeffrey Galbraith. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1821-5
hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-4359-9
ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-4358-2
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
For Paula, love’s best tutor
Acknowledgements
“Concerning International Space Projects” and “Phrases from a Student’s Water-Stained Index Card,” published in Florida Review
“Early Christian Advice Column,” published in Windhover
“Fields a Green Wave,” published in RHINO
“New Life, Lake Scituate” and “Day of the Dead, Michoacan,” published in Cresset
“Prayer,” published in Sensucht
“Record of Persons Whose Names Have Changed,” published in Southern Humanities Review
“When Matt’s Dad Lost His Hand,” published in Yemassee
God the Gorilla or Wolf
God the gorilla or wolf
Who cannot be named
Who sits preening me, cracking
lice, upping the shine
Who knocks me over
with His teeth
and expressionless lips
Who noses the soft parts underneath
Who rages at my bellygods
at my other beloveds
Who sets out His own feast
Who row by row across
the unearthly white
of the scalp scrapes up
what He can eat
Who numbers my hands, my eyes
Who has motherhen guile
Who cannot be distant only
Who will not play by my rules
The Garbage Fires
Flames darken cans of tin,
half burn the labels, pop
gristle off the chicken bones.
I watch a milk jug melt
into a twisting face.
The city won’t come out
this far. We farm beyond
the line where garbage trucks
turn back, so we dug a hole
behind the house to burn
the trash, or maybe the dark
sat gaping there before
we came. Who knows who first
crouched over a fresh-dug
pit to hide his shame. When
my father burned his porn,
I wasn’t meant to see
the photos only half-burned,
like young, green saplings on
the smoking pyre. My snooping
is what put them there
and how I knew to rescue them.
Next day, I carried myself
full of secret life to school.
Bloodlines
My son with the Spanish name is exactly like me. It’s striking how handsome and smart he is. How winsome. As if we came from the same parents. As if he were not a diluted version of me. I almost wish I had refused to circumcise him, just so people could tell us apart.
It’s striking how my wife loves each of us practically the same. How she grafted him to her breast. The way she cradles and frets over him. She would do anything for us. Even chew off her own arm if it was caught in a trap and a cheetah slunk through the tall grass to where her husband-baby lay on a blanket enjoying the afternoon. Even if the predator were a spider,
which she usually runs from screaming. I swear she would turn around, risk it all to come back for us. That’s the difference family makes. And why I have no fear of growing old. Of waking one day unable to recognize my own face.
Fields a Green Wave
Almost as thick as the young corn
on our farm were the flies, breeding
on more and more manure
from the hogs. You kept your mouth
closed walking around. Reach
your hand into the buzzing fog
and you’d catch clod after clod.
Once I caught
