the dirge
became a girl.
maybe this will explain my taste in men
When Dad busted my face open
I got to stay home from
school, watched cartoons
all day like a goddamn king.
Dad called in sick,
icing his damaged fist
with frozen peas & meat.
Overheard him on
the phone with his boss:
Broke my hand yesterday
playing ball with the kids.
Can you believe it?
I caught a fastball, no glove.
My own damn fault.
I’ll get those blueprints
to you tomorrow morning,
first thing.
Poor Dad. When he hung up
he squeezed my shoulder
& winked. Just after lunch,
there was a knock on the door.
I peeped through the blinds
with my one good eye, saw
a blonde in a nurse’s uniform.
Dad opened the door & howled
as she sang him a high-pitched
song, bending at the waist
to show off her tits.
At the end of it, she handed him
a catcher’s mitt with a
get-well card.
The boys at the office
sure look after me!
he roared, shaking his
head in disbelief
then handed me
the remote so I,
too, could
know love.
poem written with a sawed-off typewriter
Some of us vanish
out of habit, guided
by some blood-orchestral pulse—
the delirium chorus
of a rowing mind.
She was always going.
I haven’t seen her
in two decades
& I have felt
every year.
What’s the word
for a shadow’s
shadow? Apparition,
dark twin, heartless
daughter?
Sometimes she calls
on your birthday,
my father says.
Confused.
Her mouth full of radio wire.
God is a signal, the devil a song.
*
Hey Ma, how many voices
does it take for a schizophrenic
to change a lightbulb?
Wait. I’m sorry.
Let me ask
an easier question:
When you left,
did you leave
your children
half-full
or half-empty?
three strikes
After Uncle Phil got
eight years
for coke possession
I inherited his bedroom,
a modest kingdom
magnificent in its starkness:
ball chain hanging
from exposed lightbulb,
narrow mattress
& weight-lifting bench,
its iron rings laced in dust.
Nights my struck face
throbbed, when
my body swelled blue
from every pore,
I’d lie in bed
& pray to vanish
closed my eyes
so tight I saw stars.
I wanted to become
the reversal of light,
to exist
only within the
hard-clenched black—
kindergarten pariah
with
