More on: Poetry

After they bury me I suppose they will toast
my unparalleled capacity for wasting time or
proclivity for spinning wild yarns. Of my soufflés
they will say what they must.

Nothing will die when we’re together.

Until he leapt four stories toward death
my father didn’t believe in God, he said,
but himself, yet the tech in the medevac

swore, as the helicopter lifted, he asked
whether Jesus loved him.

It may come
that I don’t

make it out.

There’s something like prayer I’ve always bit on my tongue but then I can immediately taste the blood afterwards. You’re old enough to know now my father says to me.

My father wants a new suit, deep blue to black
for the viewing loose fitting, with or without
a cuff

Most objects do object to being moved:
crates of paperbacks cracking, a creaking hutch
of china the clumsy among us won’t touch.

Hey oldhead, a voice called out, you want to go?

No, thank you, I said and raised my hand as if he’d asked me
to sign a petition.

When I fought Ryan in the cafeteria I only hit him
three times before Mr. Coleman grabbed my shoulder

and pushed me against the wall.