begin the body’s wick the kidney-root of flame muscular palimpsest my father’s lips a memory of water hold vigil around the bed become garden float and bless life’s effort to lift the dark helmet : (a) he throbbed like a mountain range (b) cold is a field of tulips somewhere in northern Washington the sky empties of conviction each downward stroke a bony green frost simultaneous char there are waves we cannot resist waves like God’s fingernails dragged across a veil : (c) field of insects, sheen of eyes, field of frozen lightning (d) o, petal, please defend the yellow, the red, the purple, the blue see the son he was the lineage of winds that made refugee of his heart hands folded now immune to shadows in the corners of his mind only velvet tulips thicken calcify knuckles split at the seams walls of the damage taken apart : (e) a smile is a perfectly tied shoelace, a black windbreaker (f) with blue fleece collar the body pushes out his salt in the bowl of my neck newly formed plateau on earth from one absence to another what is weight what is human but the blinking of tulips around a small downed moon? (g) both the skin of the egg and the hair caught in a bun are efforts (h) to bind memory father my head, we are twin fruits gnarled into one the neck our pulses beat in battle mother a mesh of nights is thrown over your cheeks a country which will not leave my body : (i) we are always approaching the edge of a foreign land (j) we are no less afraid of the sweetness left for bees to redeem stamen knuckles the dust gathering force our love this wind-bowed grass
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