my father each day in the office III,

My father spent most of each day in his office.

He 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,


there were squirrels pressing on the floorboards. Somewhere out in Michigan

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,

and tossed him his meals.



I saw him there, a long while after.



He was a pale grey, cracking eggs over the sink.

We passed him around & chewed--


My mother,

going slightly red at the mention of apple juice,

was stringing our baby teeth onto a thin chain,


while I was crouched in the privacy of my smallness,

pocketing an unkempt phrasing of things;


Shirtsleeves pinned their cuffs upon the clothesline,

while the pine trees shook their fists at us.


We pushed our feet into the mud of it.

A rain swept lazily,

the damp smell of earthworms through the yard.