My sons, I have no words for this—
they are somewhere
out perched in the dripping leaves of trees,
menace in their eyes, crows
who stalk, pilfer, flee. God
help the bone-white generations muffled
by their desire, the shame of it covered
in starched white and high-necked Sunday dresses.
These we left, almost—they hang like unprayed
prayers over the heaps of plastic guns, capes and helmets,
chewed-up bullets. I split a rifle once
over my knee when you were young enough
to be stunned by me. By the picture window that looked
over a Seattle street, I saw your boy bodies
how they claimed more and more of the world, colonized
me, and I was afraid. Don’t believe
every line of this poem. Elusive words.
The man who lives across the street is a picture
for you. He refuses to drive, and as he walks, the crows
follow to gather the food he drops for them.
Our dog barks her loudest until he crosses over
to give her a treat, then with joy nearly bites his fingers off
before collapsing against his feet. Sad to say,
I have turned in embarrassment
from such adoration. Not that I haven’t craved yours,
eager beneficiaries of your stomachs’ pleasures.
I do not denounce hunger.
Let us suck the breast of the world
with our eyes open.
Here’s a brother bearing in his bones another story.
I confess—what I have given, I have given
hoping to rewrite the narrative.
It will not rewrite, it will not. Look at your brother
enfleshed at the end of this sword.
You will not deal him a blow without his blood
blooming the exact anatomy of his wound. I make myself
agape for you. Where is bread and wine?
call, call your voices while with two fingers I trace
the purpling. Never yours—mother, land,
how can I make you understand this? He of you
who stands back, every crow announcing
its dissonance mapping in his mind life’s simple questions,
let him be chief among you.
