Back

AUDIO (for EBL, click/pull timer bar to 23:00)

8-TRACK TAPE PLAYER

Mother-indented.
Inner-springs still wondrous
To any imagination that may one day
Become defunct.

Father once threw across room.
Schlitz Malt Liquor
Not included.

Father once thrown
Across rice field by grenade.

General Electric Model 289C.
Circa 1978. Solid State.
Mint Condition.

Will trade for: One Friday night
Of three-channel network TV on sofa
With family and Functional Belief System.

$15

SWEET MEN

Atop their dresser mirror
rested a two by four my father
used to scratch his back

and punish us. Its eye-knot
wizened, scowling. Once
I flew kelp from my soup

into my sister’s spiral perm.
These were summers
of little worth remembering.

He hoisted my wrist
into the master bedroom
then drove dust from the seat of my pants.

I never once thought
of my mother’s skin
splashing against my father’s;

how there on the hot sheets,
where my soul-sucking pleas
and hands blocked nothing,

man and woman must have
many times sipped
one another to sleep.

I do remember my mother
slurping a nectarine
past midnight. Drips

in the metal sink so slowly warped.
Her wet black hair never longer.
Years later, my loins

carry my own lover’s scent:
butter and spiced lilies.
I kiss her lids, and stir

for those resoundings,
half fear, half prayer,
waiting for the moment

she begins to drown
so I can save her.
Some hot days, I’ll rise

afterward to the kitchen,
craving condensed
milk and hot coffee.

Musical ice cubes
in mugs for me and her.
As my father would

sweeten my own
pointless tears.