his smacking mouth like his slippers slap across the hardwood floor of our home
becoming mechanisms of impermanence. as when a country learns to move,

he paces in his underwear, a white ribbed shirt torn at the seams. he sets down a
gold medallion with the words, Deus, Deus, Deus forming into a triangle.

before an untouched plate of rice and herring, a banana sliced in two with a
spoon, he taps the unguarded space between throat and breastbone, licks his
lips as if there was no quench to this salty earth.

as his hands wrestle my grandmother against the kitchen counter, i remind him
over and over that he loves her, even as he shakes.

her head and neck—a ripe guava before it falls. it is afternoon and thirsty.

years later, i throw a cup at my partner’s feet. this is how i beg.

then it was a jar of yellow carnations. i have been told over again that i am crazy.
it is a week before july 4th and our apartment windows wide open.

on the brown carpet, i kneel down in ruins as i remind myself that i love her.

he turns apparition at the end of the hall, examines the borders of a wall mirror
expecting to find
a hidden switch
a trapdoor

once his opaque reflection de-territorializes, a clearing appears before him.

he run through silt and its rhizomes, through sacramental mounds until feet,
breasts, arteries and joints unfix & feather. he runs

into the future. his throat carries 3,700 seed capsules which he’ll regurgitate to
mush, feeding the outstretch mouths of hungry fledglings.