Poetry

She’d anoint the dock with blood
And baptize the gills to save my
White mouth from swallowing

It’s a miracle we survive at all,
I say, as we walk the cases,
wincing at a colon as big as a stove pipe,
scowling at ribs deformed

bare feet in the grass, white tee-shirt,

palms up, gathering what fell to earth.

I would have called my daughter

from the payphone in the corner,

just to check on her,

but I didn’t have a daughter,

When I was fourteen Pennsylvania rained ice for three days. 

Out of the last green field he lumbers,
his rack too heavy for his head,
a point for each apostle.

You read disclosure does
    couples good, so we listed

all our previous loves—
    the number wasn’t bad:

a mere dozen
    old flames smothered

Our faith rested
on its arched spine
that rippled with
each footfall

Before my daughters I hold an ornament,

a clear plum on my open palm and cold—

since it was halloween anyway,
they carved a big jack-o-lantern grin
just above my pubic bone
and from inside that sinister smile
they scooped you out, pumpkin seeds and all.