in the blue and the purple light
on the shadowed sides
of these houses
in a room with a cracked window
and the ghost of edie
crawling naked across the floor
i am my father at 34
and his own father before him
i am the face my children fear
and the voice
and the raised hand
i am the emptiness and
the absence of warmth
and america is
its own form of violence
the boy is dead
next to his sister in the
back of the van
the father drives
with the radio on softly
with dylan’s voice dragging itself
through my headphones
as i sit at the foot of the bed
watching april sleep
