DEAREST BULLY

 

I can still feel the rap of your knuckles,

brother, striking against my own,

stinging, bruising, like four faceless

skulls declaring their dominance.

I can still feel the weighted air shifting

between us, I who was never quite

quick enough to slip from beneath your

reach, and rarely, if ever, managed to connect.

There are things I cannot pretend

to miss -- the swift punch to the shoulder,

the ever-elaborate wrestling holds,

a perfect pearl of milky spit dangling,

like a lazy thought, above my face.

I do not miss the ghost you pretended

to be, silent, tugging, inch by creeping inch,

at the foot of our childhood bed.

Your ghost is real now, free to wander

room to room. And I no longer fear,

though the world you left compels us to.

I miss you in the ways you were soft,

the gentle humor you held close,

the vulnerable boy hidden from view.

I miss the moments you cried, unashamed.

Tonight, as always, I kiss my daughter,

let her snuggle in, as she wraps her

small fingers around my crooked thumb,

drifting effortlessly again into sleep.

It's the kind of calm that I live for,

and would fight this whole world to keep.

SOAP

 

God only knows what casual blasphemy

or stubborn refusal of chore had tumbled out,

but there I was, a child of four, made

to kneel upon the smoke-yellow linoleum

of the bathroom floor, a fresh white bar

of soap clenched between my teeth.

I was instructed only to wait. To speak directly

to the Lord and await his forgiveness.

I cannot say whether it came, or not, only that

the wait dragged on for what felt like hours,

a thousand years to the Creator being one day.

The soap did not make my mouth feel

any cleaner, nor make what came out of it

lighter, every uncertain lisp and stutter floating

like bubbles up toward the heavens.

I tasted only shame, a chemical bitterness

lasting the whole length of the day.

I understood words to be weighted things,

meant to be avoided whenever possible,

and God the Father, forever holding

his tongue, to always be listening,

always ready to silence with the back of a hand,

a sword, or a book thrown suddenly open.

FINNISH FUNERAL, AITKIN, MINNESOTA (1939)

 

It's impossible to know who is behind

the camera's noisy shutter, capturing these

mourners gathered beneath a haze

of summer sun, in somber black and gray,

gazing, without exception, at the dry ground.

Not so unusual, perhaps, for a people

known for their stoicism, for not making such

a fuss about this life, whose language has

many words to describe the existential weight

of snow and ice, but lacks any future tense.

The pallbearers stand on the back of the flatbed,

the hand-carved coffin between them,

men long accustomed to labor, not quite

prepared for this task, their faces shadowed

by grief, hands held close to their bodies,

as if already clutching at bits of earth.

My father is the baby here, knowing only

his own hunger, memorizing each face,

the sound of their voices, each particular touch,

while my mother, many miles away, has not

yet opened her blue eyes to this world.

My great-grandmother is about to move,

slowly, just outside of the picture frame,

becoming, seemingly overnight, part of what

we call history, that lengthening shadow

we each carry, yet never quite manage to catch,

that which shows no sign of stopping

for us, or even of slowing down.