GASOLINE

Father, our house is on fire

and I fear you lit the match.

You held it in your teeth

like my tiny body, like a fish

struggling to swim upstream.

But you were not always awful,

which made you more of a lock

I had to crack. I took two bobby pins

from the drawer of mom’s dresser

when she wasn’t looking.

I spent all night in front of

that lock. No luck. Some mornings

before school I’d awake to you

rubbing my back, and even then

I woke scared of your silence

in the dull light. I know the cause

of the fire, this is not a mystery

any longer, but I am walking

through each burnt room.

To find where it started,

I only have to find the room

with the most damage.

ADMISSION WITH A THOUSAND DEAD BIRDS

 after the thunderstorm     a thousand birds fell from the sky

pulled damp to the earth     the grackles     European

starlings     red-winged blackbirds     filling trash bags

of those who picked them up in Missouri fields     and I admit

I don’t know where poems come from     or how they are

given     this morning while reading     I started

an argument with my wife     over nothing

and she thunders off     leaving me     anxiety

electricity     and I admit     I caused

the storm     knowing the truth doesn’t help it go down

any easier     I admit     those birds took off from their branches

expecting to land where they chose     their feathers

catching the wind in their descent     the branch

doesn’t wait for us to land     or the hard ground

to take us in like a prayer     or a door closing

in a house you share

RAIN MACHINE

if I walk outside     and the weather is not

hot     not cold either     the sun behind

the tree line     my head can turn on

the rain machine     the street going dark

like a period piece set in northern England

the camera on a crane     lowering down

two stories through the rain     through the rain

lit up by the streetlamps     my head’s not

right     I work on it     I do     but often

too often     my head is pressed one ear against

the grave     listening to the dirt plucking

its notes again     the chord always E minor

in the morning dew     I asked for sunshine

I took the pills     they don’t     as much

as I try     make the rain go away

but they help me see     the machine

the rain machine     the hoses running up it

like veins     all the tiny holes creating

the rain itself     the pills help me see

that above the rain machine     above even

the camera itself     is the sky

WHEN MY GRANDFATHER COULDN’T

keep driving    when the doctors told him

he couldn’t    anymore    safely drive

his Cadillac    his only symbol he’d made it

out of the poverty    the one-room farmhouse

he was born into     when my grandmother

took his keys from him    he searched

the house    each room    each drawer

then the car itself    underneath each seat

when he realized    she took his keys

away from him    he found her in the bathroom

standing at the mirror    he took her

by the wrists    and stood over her almost

two feet above her    and threw her against

the floor    he was no better than his own father

who he watched beat his mother    before

or after she played piano    and my grandmother

from that day forward    crushed Valiums

into his coffee    her only way to keep

herself safe    when his temper would rise

like a sun flare    she’d rush in and say Burt

your pills and then give him even more

five years later my grandmother    didn’t

cry at his funeral    she walked up to

his open casket    wearing yellow

her favorite color    she walked up to

his casket    said nothing    and walked away