my father each day in the office II

My father,

who spent most of each day in his office,

held the door closed with his teeth.

At around nine in the evening,

he would suddenly remember a broke ignition

or a car he’d owned for thirteen years,

squirrels pressing on the floorboards, somewhere out in Michigan

where a winter’s hitch hike kept a revolver in the glove apartment.


In order to prove an existence of sorts,

he strung my brother to the ceiling fan with string,

watched him spin a perfect circle and tossed him his meals.



I saw him there,

cracking eggs over the sink, a long while after.



He was a pale grey. We passed him around & chewed--

My mother going slightly red

at the mention of apple juice,

she was stringing our baby teeth onto a chain.


In the privacy of my smallness,

I pocketed an unkempt phrasing of things;


Shirtsleeves pinning themselves to the clothesline,

while the pine trees shook their fists.

We pushed our feet into the mud of it.

A rain swept lazily,

the damp smell of earthworms through the yard.