After Toni Morrison

               But what I want

is to perfect my comedic timing

Someone I know gifted her life to a lover then got

horny from the fear & my

father has a joke about chastity and

the divine urge to procreate. Despite the vanities

of my flesh,

I do not want to lose this head

It is my sole inheritance. A sow eating her litter

is fulfilling a mercy & I need my head

to flow in treacherous waters. If you jump too hard

into the river while it melts, your body

will never listen to you

again, says the local guide. All water has perfect memory.

All flesh is shapes of water, outlets of pain

clogging with hard want

I have lost the opacity of my body;

in this frost-bitten town, everyone can see through me.

The translucence of mud being glass. I come from a place where you need movement to survive. The guide says

some fish are not true fish & my father was

a true Catholic saint. He saw my hand

tight around my penis, he held my palm

over a candle’s flame until it sizzled. Then I woke up

& realized I do not care for hell,

nor for the semen slicking down my fingers. It is like

the melt of snow in spring. The rest is mud,

     final rest of all empire. There is death

under this permafrost. Plagues primed for the thaw

I do not despise the water

as long as it flows; I need movement to survive

Nor do I spite my father’s head. I bear his shame

          not his cross. I am a true Catholic son.

I want to meet my characters where they’re at:

Debased. Never married. 

Forever childless.