Audio: Read by the author.

 

When I tilt the cup
it drains like a face.

Outside
in the yard
my children

strut like grackles.
My wife

decapitates a toad
with the lawn mower.

Red juice spills
over my hand.
Washing dishes,

on Shabbos, I erase
what we did
together

as a family.

 

 

---

Brian Clifton has work in Pleiades, Guernica, Cincinnati Review, Salt Hill, Colorado Review, The Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other magazines. He is an avid record collector and curator of curiosities.