Saturday, September 16, 2006

THE ORIGINS OF A SCAR

There is an immense rain and nothing is saluting nobody

My father’s ankles were shined bare and I reasoned it

had something to do with going to work It was feared

I would become knock-kneed, but I was frightened more by the prospect

of war Our substitute teacher, who was also the soda jerk

had to have his friend’s brains removed from his ear by surgery

The night we first bombed Iraq, I had just returned from scuba diving

class, having been informed repeatedly of the myriad

ways I might die Our babysitter drank perfume until she

died Though the rain stopped, the news kept “pouring in”

When my finger was crushed by the weight of the canon I refused to scream

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