a halved face  anyway        a ruin

like a bloody mouth        unworthy

there’s something a broken mirror cannot see

once i looked at these scars  and found them too violent

to be lonely

i called them cities__ timbuktu    egypt without the crush of bricks

in the trance      a red wingless bug crawled up the stove      i snatched it

into a bowl of foamy water       just to find something

to save               he speaks into a crack

on the wall     hot bullets miss my ears

my father who is halfway gone    whose resurrection was ruined

by a crooked finger        i asked this of shame

be a stranger     stay out of the door

if there be bone or thorn    if there be gospels according to

salt     let it enter even the wound’s  hidden face

let the honeyed cotton   fall            let the wind break

just small enough to fill the mouth

let the ocean take without   confessing    debt to hunger