Spring 2014

 

Translation of a Threat I Made at 14 to Kill My Brother

My rage is empty as a jackstraw’s head.
You know the shoes you kick off by the bed?

Ever notice the face embedded there?

                                   Munch’s scream,

eyed eyelets, wordless tongue, all empty
save the day’s sweat soaked inside
like a shroud? Yeah, that’s me.

                                   My rage

is like the ocean’s empty roar or like the time
clock’s metallic echo down at the IGA.

I don’t like giving Mama rent money any more
than you. I don’t like boiled egg noodles,

boiled chicken, day-old tea poured over clouded
ice in dull Tupperware cups. My rage is like

the butcher knives down at the store,
keen. Honed from a lifetime of use.

---

 

Translation of the Voice in my Head

You, my friend, have much to answer for.
We could have been closer if I trusted you.

You are radio silence as a hurricane approaches.
You threaten shadows & chase the dark.

The day swallows your presence
& sunlight glistens like teeth in your absence.

When you awake with a head full of dreams,
the smoked images dissolve too soon.

You speak & your words diagram
Venn meanings, sets inside of sets.

Your mouth gestures with images.

You pilfer words & construct dreams
like a two-bit prophet. Your visions
come from a mirror nested in your navel.

No god speaks through you, rest assured.

---

 

Translation of a Prayer I Said the Night my Father Died

Father, forgive me, I don’t know
a thing about forgiveness.
Night is ink, the ocean ink,

the world all ink without paper.
Dark ink washes over the sea wall
& swallows the tiny town.

Everyone chokes in black water.
I could fall to my knees
& score troughs in the sand

like lines in my hand,
something to cipher, a way
to make meaning. I thought

he would never die. Like God.
Like myth. I thought
he could sweat out the cancer

in beaded black drops
on his forehead like a dirty halo.
He was, after all, a sharecropper’s

son. His sacrifice was not
enough, I guess. The first fruits
rotted on the vine. The wine

soured to a tangy old song.
Once I remember how,
I’ll write this one down.

---

 

Translation of a Boast I Made in the 8th Grade to Hold my Breath for Five Minutes

I could hold my breath for hours
if I wanted, but when I

go home tonight, I’ll find
my mother alone before the TV
staring at the life we don’t

have. She mourns each
channel the way she mourns

my father’s death—lung cancer
dried chest to windy ash.

One day here—the next click,
gone. His memory is like

a cathode ray tube, fading
slowly & when I stare

at a white wall, I still see him
there, negative image,
a shadow burned in white

Sheetrock. He speaks

in my mother’s voice,
the strangled sobs I hear
when I wake up at 2 a.m.

& hide behind the couch.
(Her breath keeps me above
water. She’d die to see

me throat-blue & numb).
No one sees me there.