my father each day in the office

My father, each day in the office,
held in his teeth

a broke ignition,

a car he’d owned for thirteen years,

Michigan squirrels

pressing on our floorboards,

a winter’s hitch hike & thumbs,

a denim jacket.


We braized him together with a little steel wire,

we bent & watched him,

spinned him a perfect circle.


When nothing was expected to arrive most afternoons,

we strung my brother to the ceiling fan with string.

We knew where he was at all times.


Cracking eggs over the sink in the privacy of my smallness,

I saw him there, a long while after.


He was a pale grey we passed around & chewed solemnly,

My mother going slightly red

at the mention of apple juice,

our porcelain teeth strung on a chain,

an unkempt phrasing of things.

She did not throw her arms out,
Or tuck her hands away.


Pinning our shirtsleeves to the clothesline,

while the pine trees shook their fists at us,

and a rain swept the damp smell of earthworms through the yard.


We hung each other up like soaked linen.

We pushed our feet our from under it (hunge achother up and soaked our linen to the bones)

In soaked linen, bones