AUGUST 14

My father’s face—
I think I see my father’s face

in the dreams where heaven asks
why I turn my back

but it is not my God I deplore
but it is him I deplore

It happened once more. My tenth Christmas
Light from the candles bright on the frost

He liked to slide his hands around my hips
There was no escaping him

He would part my lips in desire
to take me over

and I liked it
I know I did

I couldn’t help the feeling,
so much penetrated to the core of me

I almost laugh
My life is like a sheaf

of papers bundled together
by the hands of my father

so how can I hate him so absolutely?
Strange fires inside him flaming

made shadows of his soul
He was, I recognize, unwell

Arrogance in the sun he held himself
like glass to light to examine himself

but I cannot make him budge,
remove him from the edge

of my consciousness
It is a deadly silence

I will take to my grave,
what good his love

did me
Teaching suffering

from before I can even recall
Soon we enter fall

and then will winter come
Each season’s time comes

but it will always be
me the pliant air, him the incessant wing

Sexton: one who sees
there is sanctity in routine

that heaven gives us habit
in place of happiness

that it is another August
I’ve been blessed
to witness

Untitled

My darkest thought these days
I abandon the blade for fire
I flame myself, fan the orange
in a raze across my arm
What grows back is raw wound
A singe in the chilled wind
Father, I do not want to be
gratuitous. All humans suffer
each according to their lot, I know,
but why bring dreams to your son
such he cannot stand to sleep?
You touched him, have pleasured
Given insight to his baser nature. Father
touch him—he pleads—once more
He will accept yourself inside himself