forks

I suppose I’ve found a bit of love,
but I’ve also had my share of waking
mornings to find the silverware miraculously
flown up out of its neatly closed drawer,
piking the cupboards like javelins into a clean lawn.
I’ve spent my share of days
unlodging errant cutlery and still others nostalgic,
eyes catching on the gouges.

You, fork and knife, your
prongs and serration
forged and sharpened
for the tearing of gristle and sure-handed
slicing of flesh, from you I would have
expected this. But, spoon?
your comforting slopes carrying mashes
of grief, outmeals and applesauce,
all these years to my still, slackened mouth,
you seemed more innocent.

for austin

compassion

My own brother, childhood altered immeasurably
by my induced sloppishness, saw me
bow down in defeat
before countless crushed powders
and eye-glazing bottles. All those years
I spent crashing into doorframes,
somewhere in the eves sat a boy crouched like a fetus,
wondering how to pray someone back
from the act of self-burning.
You could not have understood, my love,
though your mind twisted itself in attempts
to recognize my face.

We are older now and I have
lost the death-lust, but I have heard stories
of his magnificence. How he would not
turn some girl out into the streets, though
she lined her purse with the cutlery and
burned spoons in his bedroom. He
could not do it. He said that could have been her,
that could have been my sister.

I can bear the weight
of gasoline soaked blankets
and am familiar with the burden
of a stomach full
of swallowed steel ball bearings.
I can move through sloughs
dragging ball and chain;
I can undertake a similar sadness.
I am not a fucking martyr, but the best
you know at leaving,
once I start the walking.