Sweet Corn
You were tough
as beetroot, cracked
skin and bloodstains,
seeped through
my guts
until my waste
was only you.
I was loose
Russian sand,
smooth and curved,
packed with holes
for you to fill.
You punctured
my youth,
your growth
my hope—
I needed you
to save me.
When they grasped
you from our plot,
left me empty
and alone to recon
with your truth,
I did not know how.
It was you who dug
my holes, flattened
each bend of my hillock
body. I know this now—I am tough as corn, too high
in sweetness
for excessive
consumption,
each kernel
its own full life.
Memory Is a Broken Disguise
My body remembers
what my mind does not,
twitches the remnants
of the eight years since I left
you out of itself.
The brain scan calls me
perfect, but the bruise
on my temple
from the last time gravity
played God with my balance
says otherwise.
Though my memory can’t carry
your weight alone,
my body has always been
too weak to save me.
As my heart chases
your ghost beyond the realm
of the living, my breath
flees my chest in hopes
of escaping your pull.
I want to forget
the muscles in your hands,
the scrape of your beard
against my tender skin.
I’m gone now, but so are you.
You’ll always be with
me.
My Father Is a Human Curse
My brother calls it The DiFonzo Rage,
says he wouldn’t be on his deathbed
had our father’s ghost not lured him there.
The nurse gives him five more years
of Rx cocktails, and I wonder if that’s
longer than he’d hoped for.
At fifty-four, he’s outgrown our family
despite his own best efforts—
the lack of shock his daughter felt
when she found him unconscious, pool
of empty bottles around his head;
his promise never to speak to me again
after men who kill for a living conspired
to save his life. I, too, have felt the pull
of this curse, have forced a nurse
to summon those men, catch the pulse
dripped from my arms as I gazed
in the mirror, its cracked surface
the same shape as the razor in my hand.
When asked why, I said, it’s just who I am.
It was a lie I didn’t mean to tell.
I have not divorced myself from my father’s
pain, his parents’ failures still alive
in my own nightmares.
So echo this a prayer.
Give me the strength
to find myself
alone.
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