museum of private amazements, hailstones sharp as fists,
furies’ hive, nettles nest of birdlings, ravening beaks and no
mama. My mouth is a hospital, taste of old mercury
my father’s brain sucked Auschwitz dry. My teeth are
hooligan troubadours pounding tin drums, orphic
music of the goosestep. O, father of mine, spare me
the barbed wire of your nightmares. My throat has been spared
for swallowing pills, my tongue for declaring an intention to
survive red clouds and a sky silent and drowned. If my pockets are
weighted with stones, let me whorl on an eddy like this brown and
scarlet leaf. Teach me to speak words sensible and kind, my lips
a bright parasol opening, my days a slow motion puzzle.