uh oh

My father spent most of each day in his office.
at around nine thirty in the evening,
He would suddenly remember the broke ignition
in a car he’d owned for thirteen years.

He would take five or so short trips a day
from his office to the coffee pot in the kitchen & back.
and he spent the summer in a corner of our backyard.


In order to prove an existence of sorts,
he would sometimes string my brother to the ceiling fan,
and toss him his meals while he spun in a circle.

Then one year there was this pale grey that came
and just hung all over everything.
There was just this pale grey cracking eggs over the sink.
And Eventually we had to do it in. At the dinner table one night
it was passed around & chewed--My mother

going slightly red at the mention of apple juice,

was stringing our baby teeth onto a thin chain,
While crouched in the privacy of smallness,
I was pocketing an unkempt phrasing of things;


"Shirtsleeves pinned their cuffs up on the clothesline!" I shouted to no one in particular.

"While the pine trees shook their fists at us!" I said while I shook my fists.


And We pushed our feet down through it! down through the lazy earthworm smell of it, down damp into the very mud of it!

And It was so altogether there, so lovely and alive--
I tell you,
it was better than a saffron curtain!