the day he traveled to my daughter's house
it was june. he cursed me with his morning nod
of anger as he filtered his callous
walk. skip. hop. feet slipshod
from 125th street bars, face curled with odd
reflections. the skin of a father is accented
in the sentence of the unaccented.
The gaunt thing with no organs creeps along the streets of Europe, she will commute, in her feathered bat stomach-gown with no organs with sores on her insides even her head
1 Meryon saw it coming (who was he?): No people, so no noise. As it should be. The Bridge. The Morgue. Ghostly round his bed Antipodean atolls and tattoos had fluted,
Volcanoes puffed. Then borborygmic sea Forked, at its last gasp, into a V: Down that black gallery and backward slid
Purple as tulips in May, mauve into lush velvet, purple as the stain blackberries leave on the lips, on the hands, the purple of ripe grapes sunlit and warm as flesh.
Every day I will give you a color, like a new flower in a bud vase
Hard Rock / was / “known not to take no shit From nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it: Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut Across his temple and plowed through a thick Canopy of kinky hair.
The WORD / was / that Hard Rock wasn’t a mean nigger Anymore, that the doctors had bored a hole in his head,
August, goldenrod blowing. We walk into the graveyard, to find my grandfather’s grave. Ten years ago I came here last, bringing marigolds from the round garden outside the kitchen. I didn’t know you then. We walk
Washing Kai in the sauna, The kerosene lantern set on a box outside the ground-level window, Lights up the edge of the iron stove and the washtub down on the slab Steaming air and crackle of waterdrops brushed by on the pile of rocks on top He stands in warm water
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