Ancestors
German Catholic Irish white white white Judeo-pastor minister wrote
God poems
to bohemian gypsies Czech Texas
motorcycles
in Spain drunken brawling seafaring mythology
cracked open the soft snail shell
with rogue seed tongue
rain sleet spring semester
at the bottom
of a beer can
must and yellowed tomes
ballast backpack desperate push
torts evidence immerse scales
Justice
sobering gold and blue pale veins sweaty
child-thing misfit monkey youngest
trailing chaos
often lost quiet corners grass
eucalyptus
dog hair duck eggs
Goose Goddess
bicycle boys
clamoring gender home
quiet and absent
television
daydream
books leaf through learning
bad eyesight was
inevitable.
My father
was a seafaring man.
Poseidon son and Aphrodite incest
small God, quiet sinew
of the household
intricate rigging
unfurled sails inside
a bottle of anger
shaken foam forming
withdrawal to create himself
apart
lone cigarette
glows lighthouse distant
3 AM downstairs television
cork comes off
ocean inside his
splitting head
earthteeth eye hand
electrical coordination
restless fear feet
he taught me
how to male missives
capture cold and unravel
heart puzzles
always been a solid son
on the horizon
dip low tack
come about
female body
make do
until torrential
it’s not real
until it rains.
