In Matt's Wake

I.
We wore feathered hats and
sleek animal hides, our eyes
gazing skyward while we
slaughtered

The sacrificial lamb on a bed
of toothless smiles and baby
blue eyes, pretending not to
notice

How the blood stained like
satin upon our fingertips.

II.
Mother cried in the corner,
Father wept from the rafters,
and we shot holes in the concrete
supports with Red Rider's, the
BB's embedding themselves like

(the crayons that lack sheaths, waxy
scribbles on sheets of construction
paper, tiny legs and arms of paper
dolls that we ripped and shredded
into colorful confetti
and threw like rice at a wedding
or a kindergarten valentine's party)

mothers tucking their only child in at night,
reading Dr. Seuss to soothe the
monsters in the closet, under the bed,
in the back alleys of our minds and tongues
and black cavity teeth.

III.
I heard talk about Job cursing God,
though it was only a rumor.

I mean, how could a straight shooter
like Job, a wealthy, faithful, God-fearing son
of a gun, turn on his heels with
his middle finger raised in
reverence and yell

Fuck off!

And, how could he then proceed
to the single tree left in his pastures,
where his sheep and cattle and all
his little boys and girls once gathered,
sling one end of his hempen rope over a branch
bent to heaven, and cleanly knot a noose
on the other?

(I would imagine that he stood
on a branch not eight feet
from the ground. Did he
jump, his neck snapping
like a firecracker,
or did the tree rear up as if piloted
by God himself, and strike him
dead upon the earth?)

Tell me, does it seem plausible that
he would slip his head into that noose
and tug it tight?


Jesus wept and
Job hung.

IV.
We sat on top of
The Last Supper,
overlooking the cemetery that was
bathed in pale moonlight, passing
a bowl between us as we partook in
silent communion.

Clouds struggled to take form
under the moons sad smile,
molding themselves into a question
that I could not be bothered with.

I wondered what it felt like to
trespass amongst the gaping craters,
bounding across the surface without
gravity's grip.

I closed my eyes and thought about
(the tree where Matt smoked his last
three cigarettes in succession, the
broken branch where he stood until
it could hold his weight no longer, how
the sky watched helplessly and mourned
late into the morning) how slowly the earth
spins.

Eulogy For the Moon

I throw away napkins
with words like desperado
and shampoo written on them.
They sink to the bottom of
the trash-can and set themselves
on fire. I stick my head inside to
watch the burning closely.

I carve the letters for midnight
on birch bark and place them in the corner.
I sleep better at nights knowing the time.

I hear a cat moaning in the street
and I swear it spoke.

I am an orphan.
Please kill me.

I call a taxi and have it run the damn thing over.
I start to write a eulogy for the cat,
but realize that only the moon
sways the ocean's tides.

I write a eulogy for the moon instead.

Ich bin ein Tråumer.
Bitte töten mich.

I fire my gun into the sky and slap
the concrete with the palms of my hands.
I wring a pigeon's neck and pluck
the beak off. I rip the nails from my fingers
and choke them down. I push my
pregnant head down the stairs and abort
all over the basement floor.

The moon swells my dreams.

A Man Becomes Him

A boy pulls stitches from
his knee and stretches them out
on stone tablets. He eats
a typewriter whole
and chokes.

His letters fall out.

He carves a cavern out of stone and stitches.
A pick axe becomes him.

He secures himself a future
by financing further expeditions.

His letters are fully mature by age twenty.
He learns how to have conversations with them.

He fully integrates blasphemy
into the cave's ecosystem.

A moth brings him berries.
He kills the messenger and molds himself out of clay.

He cannot recall a time where wild-fires spread
this far south. He calls upon himself and creates
a one man fire line.

He re-discovers the typewriter in his stomach.
He finds the word for water and pumps it on the fire.
He finds the word for sky and paints it on the domed ceiling.
He finds the word for life and breathes it on the dirt.
He finds the words for himself.

A man becomes him.

White Picket Fence

We were driving in the stakes
of a white picket fence, handkerchiefs
hanging out of our pockets.

A man was whistling
to himself in the distance.

A dog was barking.

The earth was sagging under the post
like an old pair of breasts.

The sun spoke in drawn-out
sighs.

I drank water from a mason jar.

I could taste the dank dirt
beneath my fingernails.

We swung mallets like
a prison chain-gang.

A cow stared at us from across
the way, a wad of cud sifting
between its jaws.

A pile of rocks grumbled
and walked up to us.

We counted our eggs and shot
a rooster out of a cannon.

Hunger hibernated in the pit
of my stomach, so I broke down
and wept.

I squat and defecate in the dirt.

Chicken Little was right

We lay on a carpet of moss
as saints shone down through
maple and oak leaves.

Vines intertwined with shadows
and choked at our feet.

Our beards grew at an alarming rate.

A sparrow fell dead beside
our heads and God barely glanced
up.

Chicken Little ran out of hiding
and sang us a song.

Our tongues forked
as snakes slithered between our thighs.

We sewed our skin together
with porcupine pins and plastic threads.

My femur erupted in ash and silence.

Our speak was violence.

Lightning burst and-

Sparrow

A sparrow once died in my hands,
its eyes glazed over like ice on a lake.
I could feel the heartbeat slow and
stutter out. I cupped the body of feathers
and beak, breathing softly on the fledging
that was torn from the cusp of flight.

My hands trembled as I dug a shallow grave
next to my mother's garden. I marked it with
a stone the size of my fist, a monument to
fallen sparrows, discarded and forgotten
in tall grasses, in spring rain, in winter's snow,
abandoned by mortality and God's
ghostly hand.

My Roots

My roots extend deep into Michigan's soil. They have been burrowing since the day I was born.

My roots are taking walks with my grandmother downtown, the flowers and fountain in the middle of the park that drew me in. My roots are basketballs on the basement floor, metal bat-mobiles and tricycles.

My roots are curled up in the back of my fathers station wagon, looking at stars through telescopes. My roots are playing freeze tag and hide and seek, scavenger hunts and face painting. My roots are water gun fights, watermelon seed spitting contests.

My roots are learning to ride a bike, holding neighborhood races that spanned the distance of one block. My roots are climbing pine trees in my back yard, building forts in the ones across the street. My roots are building dams when it rained, stopping up the water with sand, smashing it all with chunks of concrete.

My roots are private school playgrounds, steel slides and monkey bars. My roots are going to the library and carrying as many books as I could home. My roots are sweat pants and sweaters.

My roots are catching crayfish in the creek at Milham park with my bare hands, scooping tadpoles with yogurt containers. My roots are picnics and feeding ducks, running through groups of geese with my arms waving.

My roots are camping at Van Buren in my grandparents old canvas tent, running up and down the dunes, diving into the waves of Lake Michigan. My roots are watching my father build a fire, collecting sticks and dead brush to feed it. My roots are burnt marsh-mellows and kerosene lamps, katy-dids and crickets.

My roots are frying ants and leaves with a magnifying glass, cutting earthworms in half to watch the two halves squirm, rolling pill-bugs between my fingers. My roots are picking blackberries and strawberries from my mothers garden, stealing mulberries from my neighbors trees. My roots are baking pies and eating rhubarb.

My roots are snow angels and snow-forts, tunnels burrowed into snowbanks. My roots are snow ball fights and snow-men. My roots are hot chocolate that was waiting on the stove for me when I came in from the cold, blankets and quilts that my grandmother made me.

My roots are raking leaves into piles, jumping out of trees into them, burying myself in them. My roots are hayrides and harvest festivals, three-legged and potato sack races. My roots are bobbing for apples, searching for candy bars with flashlights in the dark.

My roots are setting up the christmas tree, decorating it with dozens of colorful ornaments, setting up the model train track around the tree and watching it chug along. My roots are Christmas morning breakfasts, egg casseroles and slices of ham, crackers and cheese.

My roots center me, station me here. My roots are ever-growing, digging and twisting. My roots are myself, are my family, are my childhood and adulthood, my friends, my experiences. My roots will never be severed, only momentarily forgotten.