Didn’t go to sleep
until three am.
Limbs stripped of
liquid wax from hundred-degree yoga Friday night
Cleanse of a week
contemplating too many shadows
Woke at nine
Saturday toe movements
Ingest water and an
overripe banana
Scrolling a message
returned from family in the ongoing conversation
Of how eighty
percent of them voted for Trump and
How this conclusion
was reached with a poet in the clan
Spiting up bloody
book pages and science
They tell me why
can’t you be simple; stop asking questions
Go get laid; quit
worrying
I am not curious and
I would hardly know how to do research
Privilege insulates
you when you are not the one affected
To not risk getting
called out or maybe losing the little you have
Because you held a
mirror up to the person with more power
To let them see
their ugliness
Parked at the
library exchanged governmental music
Drove beyond the
spillway, up fifty-five
Into the maw of the
detention camp porch and the train horn
Hadn’t seen my
daughter since September
Longest I have gone
in my lifetime
Drains away into
this casual acceptance of what normal is
Space taking and the
knock on a door that goes unanswered
Requires three
minutes, repeated knock knowing the cosmogony
Hear a piano like a
replicated doorbell of her twelve-year-old fingers playing long
Reaching out in
silent voice and wanting to make sure I heard
Like fawn was in
position, knowing buck was approaching
Her mother holding
baby three
Ask kid if she wants
to bring a soccer ball so we can kick it in the park
Tells me she won a
juggling and skills competition including the boys
And Paul was there
Car to sushi because
the girl likes snow crab and chopsticks
And daddy has no
teeth again, can’t bite, remove, fold temporary into napkin
She has to look
away, ask, are they out yet?
Talks about the
public or the Catholic high school
Visits, decision in
two years, I mention expanding world, perspective
Mirror how good
public junior high was for me
How to live her
life, bold, and take on uncomfortable and novel
She tells me about
reading The Once and Future King
Of Lancelot and
Guinevere, I mention the word bad-boy and she blushes
Ride talks about Ave
Maria in school piano during Christmas mass
Girlfriends might
sing while she plays, says I probably would not want to come
Sniffing father’s
atheism and I say, “If it’s on a school day I would probably have to work, but
I would want to come. It is good to get in
front of a crowd and be brave like that.
I am proud of you.”
I que a Slingshot
Dakota CD, to tell her about a female piano playing punk lead singer
To the park, autumn
winds, juggling on knees, ball up and sideways
Race her across long,
win by a few lengths, but she is gaining
Sprint and show her
a downward dog jumping into crow pose
Catching my body on
my knees laughing at the sky
Fantastic Beasts and
Where to Find Them
Movie, pulled our
Gryffindor robes from some Halloween ago
Watch the hesitancy
in her eyes for a split between tween
And reading her the
novels in first grade head on my chest at bed time
Finishing in countless
car rides audio book commutes from Friday to weekends
Debates then agrees to
robe, we fly in style, tell her others may look at you
And you may feel
like the only one, but they are happy and a bit jealous
That you are alive,
not afraid to stand out and be you and play
That sometimes you
don’t walk, but you twist in the air
For no reason but
you felt it in the moment and you leap
Never be afraid to
jump or ask the waitress for an extra set of chopsticks
To use as wands to
watch 3D wizards, we banter as if magic is real
Time ticks into
return and she wants me to borrow The Once and Future King
So we can talk about
it next time, probably when the next Star Wars comes out at this rate
Smile and I hug her
and tell her I will always love you
No matter what I am
here, even when I am not here, you are in my heart
I suck in the other
man she calls dad
The way her mom
makes a point to say it as much as possible in front of me
The doing what is
best for another human being and making one’s ego
Like a rabbit in a
hat
Drive back south to
LSU Florida traffic full of disgruntled tail lights
Sounding to Ramones and the Clash wanting to hear punk
Fast and pressed
even if the lane is trudging gator bait
Pull into the house
to another Trump message
Rock the Kasbah Bill
Murray on DVD on the side, eat a sweet potato
Write a bit, and get
ready to head out to Urban South Brewery
To Shotgun Cinema
and watch the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense
On a big screen in
the dark, drinking ale
With a herd of slippery
people making flippy floppy
To David Byrne’s big
suit
Why do I do all this
yoga; for tireless thighs that bend and gyrate
To every song after
Heaven, moving with the crowd alone
Feeling breath and
darkness that cold pit of late November
In a warehouse, letting
go to the speed of talking
Into being in a
moment burning down the house
Of this is how I
find myself
Hands in the air
jumping, film strip drum beat base line
Clapping as if this
is real
Watching the
conversations in a place where nothing ever happens
Credits, lights,
walk to car, iPod rotate playlist I put on when daughter is in-car
This is not my
house, this is not my beautiful wife
Same as it ever was
behind the wheel of a large automobile
Tchoupitoulas next
to the Mississippi River
Same as it ever was,
Same as it ever was, letting the days go by
Yawping a punk
anthem in Bhakti heartbeat bouncing independent toes
That do not give a
fuck what anyone thinks being me
Like a rouge wolf
howling at the harvest moon
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