Dear Father (with Fever)
To you I have nothing
to say, you who are not here.
Feverish on this gray couch
in a gray year in a gray world.
The viral load of Earth multiplying,
the viral load of melancholia.
Big droplets and small, aerosols.
The children harbor, fester, super
spreaders, and yet, their sweet milk scent.
I see your face in my children’s faces
and cannot escape the loss of you
cycling, repeating each morning,
mourning, morning like a giant
bell in my brain.
Grief in the time of plague.
Love in the time of same.
You are a giant bell that beats
my brain each morning,
mourning, morning.
I cannot escape your face that ghosts
my children’s faces.
Their sweet, milk-scented heads
harbor and fester. Super
spreaders, big and small.
Melancholia multiplies like a viral load
in this gray world
in this gray year on a gray couch
where I fever and cough fear.
You are not here, I say to you nothing
you can hear.
Prayer (with Percocet)
Lost in a cemetery again, a maze
of losses: section C, row 6, plot 18
Red roses, rows of endings,
and the scent of oranges
At the center, I am surrounded by stone,
leave a pebble behind
Didn’t I hope a pill would keep
my father’s heart alive forever?
Didn’t I hope a pill would take
care of it?
The gods of science were wrong—ghosts
floating off in their white coats
What can you do for me, ghost-
colored pill asleep in my pocket?
Miniature moon who could crush me,
who is almost good
In the morning, I check the label
and see my own face in flames
One pill and I can watch my pain
from across the room
I slowly slide my breath between
the knives in my neck
My sunrise of painkillers
blood-orange