Plot Summary
Had I known anything teachers wouldn’t have taught me
civil wars branches of government Iroquois longhouses teachers
most days said how to scrape from their mouth what was
ancient trident or surrendered habitat and would know
that the spill of formaldehyde gave us webbed frogs
to dissect geologic shrines how to tune a flute so much
negative capability in me I couldn’t play notes even as instructed yet
without learning I memorized seasonal notches like drowning
rain with its gathering monologues of noise on my attic or summer’s
waxed petals a jeweled delusion that took the whole side
of the house by the basketball hoop safe to say all
my childhood I came in the back door spinning
silly fragments of babble and sticks and exhibits of growing
and never thought more than the center
of my bed in the attic watching crackup sitcoms
when our dog died I was in Israel and my parents
didn’t object when I thinned to a plane but when I
drifted into the ribs of the west in my green outfits and brushes
they reminded me the pot was always cooking
basmati and meat in the broiler flattening frying
left me queasy I molted from them and talked
only of moonlight and David’s topaz eyes so my mother flew
over to see who this was and investigated his proceedings
a divorce sketched as near completion but wait
for a year my father grew a beard I was three and scared
of his face which I couldn’t see
from some threshold he had returned from
land in the middle east he brought me lions the gravel to start
a conversation my grandma gave me gold
bracelets that dragged on my little wrist and later some parakeets
clustered in our dining room a room
we only used to cut my brother’s penis on a silver
tray and over years appendages broke
and were fixed in Oklahoma we had stitches staples and still
police came to the door twice three times to see that
my parents stopped whatever harm I was born
under an arch because my father needed to close
his black book the rush to two women each
weekday needed the domestic we never parked at the subway I got
older with his ancient coins had to practice
my daring in private let my hands feather
body while the tin sky
yawned I hardly remember what it was like to be young but I
know when my mother was fertile she fell into
the cellar after that she stayed a large
shadow on the bed many months overlooking
the newspaper she must have been waiting
for vague woes on our dim cul-de-sac this bell
of memory rings through me.
***
Author photograph by Bob Godwin
