We

(brother and brother)

from the same slotted womb, fallen
apples into the world
must lever the door of the old, old home

(childhood playthings)

splintered back and enter
to smash with heavy panting sticks all
but for the lynching meat there.

I never trust a road that encircles a town:
it’s a death knot
and halts the evolution of blood
for the slow, slow resurrection of madness.

We cannot live
together, now that scales have turned
into shattered clocks, and the old, old house escapes

across the threshold. It’s a another era:
words run wild in the street
and only stumpy guttural sounds
take flight from the open vowels of their mouths.

So tempting to leave the hooks in the wall
display the portraits
of Grandfather and Grandmother
who wedded by the neck and gurgled a progeny

of uteral excuses into the dirt –
to breed, and flap newborn wings
higher and higher
until we

(brother and brother)

from the same miscast fishnet, gasp on a flopping shore
outside the old home

struggle to breathe outside the old home
now gone to splinters and chips

struggle to expand our repertoire of gills
into lungs.

This piece first appeared in Prime Number Magazine, June 2011.