in the snapshot

we line up

by age

look sideways

but for a sister

who

at the last second

faces the camera

head on

the world

in one moment

a shudder

of photo op

two-bit cyclone

in the next

a whip

lash of childhood

underfoot

hurled

where the dead

lie uncomposed

at most

illness is

a voracious

guest memory

hops on one leg

from the snapshot

we slip

the future a look

to a certain nobody:

a pair of wingtips is not

a means to fly   even if

you are not in love

with the lies of the father

the rain can be taken

for medicine   a boy has

seventy-two castanets

such doors seep

light in small doses

flush his golden hands

all incisors & milk

you are unassailable, knobbing up naked, singing

the hills alive, reservoir brimming at your back

best loved & creamy

mindless of cannibals in livery   

                                                  later, when every

eye is died, triumphant

blood rushes deaf to my ovation

we’re happy enough, most days

the body sere with treatment is fifteen

& yours is nine

what rules you subsumes you

though promise bursts like april dogwood

you artfully bloom,

                                      instead, like yeast

                             to swell the collapsed skin of him

let sacrifice be flesh alone           let the air of a body

never loved enough to be [inside]

wait inert for a late parade

ascending holy

linoleum stairs

youshadow

me like i’m

on my knees

before kiss

before i have

the next adonis

in my lip

line my dark

my breathless

doe eyed brother

i find you wanting

a faithless mouth

always racing

always slipping

a wet fish

to the slap

come a day

i’ll lay

my idolatry

to rest

but the price

of monotheism

is empty rise

r is this passion

play of dumb