the poem starts
abruptly
something like
but they came back
for him
dragged him out
to the sidewalk and
beat him into a coma then
walked away
and what more do
you need?
this is the event
spelled out as
simply as possible
it happens
not for
the sake of art
and not to reveal some
deeper truth but
because violence is
as effortless as
breathing
because it needs
no reason
imagine a
rusted spike driven
through the eye
of god
a man buried
beneath a faded
stretch of sidewalk
another man
shot to death
by a pay phone
this is the wasteland
i’ve been looking for
crows in empty fields
and deer mangled
by the highway
your sister raped by all
of her friends
her fingers
pulled off like
flowers petals
if i were
a better person
i’d hold you
if i had the guts i’d
make you smile
twenty nine years in
the nation of addicts
and all i’ve planted
are my father’s bones
i never expected
anything to grow
i am defining
nothing but myself here
beneath this cold white sun
i am placing my right hand
over the eyes
of a child i never had and
only one of us casts
a shadow
it’s not an
admission of guilt
it’s an act of salvation
look at this land
a grey stretch of valley between
defeated hills
and all of these burning houses
that people call home
all of the pain stored away
but never forgotten
more than enough to bring
de chirico to his knees
and still none of us leave
i know these roads
i understand
that they all go somewhere
but i have been losing my way
for the past twenty years
ten years spent in
light blue rooms with the
vague forms of women always
walking out the door
with this image of children in
barren villages
burning the american flag and
dancing on the graves of crack babies
always hovering at the
edge of my sight
maybe the taste of a stranger’s
pale luminous skin
when the phone rings at three
in the morning and a voice
that i can’t immediately place says
i left him
says
i love you
and it’s always at a point
where one season is giving way
to the next
where the boyfriend
has been arrested and the
daughter is screaming and the
a headache
just after midnight
as i try to remember why
i ever started writing
at all
a day spent walking
empty streets from a
forgotten part of my life
and i am tired of the past
and of my job like an
impossible weight
and i am tired
the house is old
the windows distorted
and i’m afraid of the day
my son begins to build a wall
between us
i’m afraid he will not be
able to
escape being my son
and this scorched taste
in my mouth is all i’ve kept of
the five thousand wasted days
spent trying to save the
woman who loved pain
from herself
or maybe i can finally
the boy is possibly
dead already and almost
certainly dying and still
the box that holds his body
is thrown into the water
ten years old
you understand
and drugged and bound and raped
and i am spitting in the
face of god
i am sitting next to my son’s bed
and listening to his
gentle breathing
i am finding the point
at which i would
kill without regret
