All around us

they are hunting God

but we sleep so deeply

we discover the prints

in the morning

& it’s as if time

has become a crowd

gathering to watch us fail,

but in the forest

it’s enough to dream

of the possibilities

the way a child

dreams of fairies—

yet who are we to dream,

we are a group

of impatient falconers

‍

Pause for a second

before the rain shapes

a past that beckons

to dissipate

amongst the blackbirds

of our fate

& listen to the secret

of our children

amongst the thorns

carving a reminder

of the light

that tears our bodies

into the shards

from which we were born

from nightmares

that also beckon

the doctor & the nurse

to give up & bring us

the hearse

‍

Take a moment

to receive injury from this place

because of what’s next—

we call it escape violence,

how we’re caged by fear

& cannot meditate

on a horse or a sunset

or a guy on the bus

who inspires us

because he looks

like another guy who reminds us

of a guy who is part bird,

part lizard, part man,

so we ask our friend

to stand on the temple steps

& shoot us in the arm

in homage

‍

The sky tonight

is no reason to believe

an absence of flesh

is cause for arson,

the night already alight

with so many fireflies

we can see

ourselves clearly

in the darkness—

ask yourself again

if it’s worthwhile

to walk the streets

of twenty years ago

as if the stars

had never been there

in the first place

but you hadn’t noticed

‍

The menace of a messenger

carrying news from the portrait

of our brilliant scars

is as childless

as the dying tanager

within our polestar,

a palliation we mask

to maintain a resemblance

to those poets whose thicket

of bodies & thought

echo with stories

broken by couplets & lines

that waltz through their towns

as if we forgot

the dismembered art

laid to rest in the pines—

the vines of our passion

through a wood of despair

remember a time we believed

our friends were there

reading our poems

& not tossing them aside

to drown themselves

in pesticide

or write the same letter

over & over

about part time work

& a busy Passover

indifferent that God’s house

was already in foreclosure—

how we thought they’d see

the burdens we carried

within the jasmine

in our satchels

tucked between our knees

or that our glass frames

had grown too fragile & wary

to hold ourselves together

for another journey

through the prairie—

to our once dear friends

for whom we’d have died,

witnesseth what has become

of our exquisite, sorry lives

‍

Most of us riot

with supreme brightness

but when people nod

& motion to an esplanade

we have no idea

what’s going on,

we’ve never known

true friendship,

we are bad at basketball

& we are obsessed

with the statistics

of our failures,

so we eat the toes

of our porcelain dolls

& declare our faith

to our cats

by ingesting aerosols,

the lanterns in the river

blacken with ash

as principals scream at us

when our children

can’t use chopsticks

to pick up dice

& run to the cafeteria

to cry under a table

because the gym teachers

of the world believe

they have no rights

‍

Quarterly reports

from a plateau of willows

reveal the breadth

of wilting flowers,

lilies & peonies

mere yellowing outlines of figures

carefully painting a triptych

adapted for everyone

who has become a human shield

posing with sugar

& surrendering to the violence

of their dreams to see—

do they writhe sideways

in pain?

Are their bodies covered

in chain?

Are there any songs

left to be sang?

How quickly they grow silent

in the little league baseball games

of their hearts,

like an eruption of sorrow

from a balcony

many stories above the city

waiting in vain

for some bird of prey

to carry them away

to someplace bright

where their children can run free

without fear of any blight

of teachers pinning them to linoleum

to twist their arms behind their backs

until they hurt so bad—

every time we see a pear

we must now recall

those years pressed into a wall

staring into an eclipse

of the harshest of enmities

with nothing to protect our eyes at all

‍

When the owls beneath our skin

fall asleep,

what becomes of night

can only be dreamt comfortably

by apostles delighting

upon their dramatic exit

from New Jersey

years before Catholic dormitories

burn to the ground

& the smell of twisted satisfaction

remains with us forever,

like friends of dead hawks

ruining the old religion

while we hide in the library

to avoid our wives

returning to tell us

everything about our lives

is terrible, a morgue of dark secrets

nicknamed homosexual slurs

emerging from years past

when the woman who one day

would harm our child

was young, bearing witness

to her father beat a dog,

beat a horse

& brandish a shotgun

before she inhabited his body

in deference to someone’s mother

who once gave us

homosexual nicknames for fun

‍

Like the dragonfly

who mistakes a helicopter

for its mother

the river curves

into another

with little satiety

& the secret society

of chosen ones

who lack empathy

for those of us stimming

along the bank

are nothing

but undeserving

of sympathy—

orchids scattered

amongst the pavilion’s

decorative fountains

will forever remain

out of touch

for people like us,

shamed into ourselves

by schoolteachers

so disturbed

by their own fictions

about mental illness

they file civil cases

against us as if court

is a church & they deliver

the benedictions

‍