And all my friends pack together ash castles on the beach after
a bonfire spit for mortar and the ocean rolls back home with a knot
in its stomach to pick through the day’s personals There is such a sunlight A surgeon in a box
prepares a body for dissection draws lines shapes colors
skin like stained glass Next to me in my pew
a fly genuflects and the echo cathedral wide
deafens only to be drowned by the organ’s groan a distorted sound like
Wheel of Fortune’s Bankrupt spin A kid with crossed legs
holding his crotch hands me a basket and I’m hot in the face
with shame, my single dollar All I want is the morning paper My blood stuttering
in the sunlight the sky so heady, thinking the world of itself On my front porch,
one neighbor kid triages the other neighbor kids
after a game of cops and robbers I will walk back inside without the paper without my arm
either and my one good hand going inside my pocket for an excuse comes out addled
