Wednesday

is last week's bread
kept in the freezer. To eat anything now
would be to admit a willingness
to attend someone else's
funeral. Hard candy
works hard at hurting
the teeth. Muddy shoes brought me
to this place-I've left them
outside to rot in the rain
for fear of germs. There's safety
in isolation, like cupping
the rim of a bottle
with one's mouth to contain
the wine. In survival
stories, there's something
absurdly inhuman. This is not the first time
I've passed out and seen a head
wound of myself
in the mirror upon waking:
blood parts my hair on one side
the moment I've sat up
on the floor. The pain is
constructed in a such a way
that it's difficult
not to identify with it.

Father--

I have taken your body and done with it
as you requested. Now we wait.
The grass on the lawn is livid,
uncontrolled even as it was there to wear
you out in the last months. Did you know then
that you were dying and left me
instructions for the funeral, but no key
to the front door? I sit on this swing whose chains
have ossified into rust. At some point,
I shall have to go in and step
on the marks your crutches made
on the linoleum. For now, the house stays
locked up, like the mouth of a boy
who's been sent to his room without supper,
without a parent he could recognizably hate.

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