mothermoney | fatherexile | childface | a gut poem

Daddy saw someone get killed on the streets

*

as easy as that

old historical streets

cracked open

open air corpse

spectacle of grimaces

catalogue of death

pick one

your fault

can’t repent

*

he becomes a fugitive

everyone’s mouths are open

she sends money and money and money

month after month

death grinning

half moon

dies then and there

and then becomes a father

*

shut me in a room

lights out

fears out

shut me in a room

shrinking

can’t find the cracks of light

shut me in a room

taught me right?

*

school children saw a young man jump off a bridge

mute ambulance workers picked him off the ground

shattered, too many sounds, loose inside, bones collide

*

I started my day

and came across a man under a white sheet

broken

underneath a bridge

and I placed the outside furniture next to a corpse

in my uniform waiting for guests to arrive

I look at his shoes

and hours later the ground is washed

he disappeared

and a school bus halts and children walk over the spot

there is no stillness

I watch flowers decay as the weeks go by

*

Daddy saw someone get killed on the streets

*

they made a ghost out of him

and I was born

“Study for “Roman Girl”” by Daniel Huntington (1816–1906)

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