good night moon good night father
while you snore I spend the night traversing your mouth like a derelict vagabond on occasion resting by a jagged molar noticing how your breath smells like turpentine and death noting how your tongue resembles a salmon-colored dragon its flame stilled for the evening slumbering sweating prepping itself for another day of blowtorch slaughter
on the beach
on the beach they’re all eating sand handfuls of grit the tide a retreating monster surly and selfish starfish curdle and bake beneath the huge orange boulder a marmalade star pus-colored and infected grown obese and too proud for the sky I write a message on the low-hanging arm of a cloud and watch the wisps shred into ether one question too many another prayer begged too late
traffic
instead of a bible verse I had what you never said tattooed on my wrist some think it’s a corsage others a camp stamp from Auschwitz it doesn’t matter nothing does but that the moon follows me every day like a jealous stalker bent on revenge as I take a wrong turn pedal to the metal down the on-ramp
his best pick
at the wake there’s a séance in your eyes when I ask what you’d loved and who you’d kill and why you lied even though father favored you as no child should ever be favored
caught
there’s a power outage on your face everything ripe and disrupted as you wait for the tree to fall holding out your arms as if to catch a plummeting babe or a tooth that god spit free without even noticing