However many days I spent waking up, my father would be awake already, before the dawn came rushing down over the hills which bracketed our house, dancing through the blades of grass, up into the trees, and finally resting -stretching out arms and legs in tiny tendrils – on my bedroom floor.

———–

Lasting, fasting

From love for 40 days,

 

Until the clouds all cleared,

Crested the edges of the sky,

 

And God came down

On a fiery horse, calling

 

My name which I could not hear.

God sounds like thunder,

 

And I sound like rain.

———–\

I dropped the needle on your record today.

It skipped and jumped, and pulled my heart from my chest.

And out into the world of anger swords and violent words,

 

Its eyes grew wide.

Astonishment like apple trees breeding oranges, and mothers oiling

Door-hinges which squeak and scare me in the

Dark.

 

You fell out of my speakers today, crumpled up like those last

Letters I wrote. Like the birthday card I bought and couldn’t send.

Do you still break plates?

 

Do you still call, sobbing, ‘help me’?

Do you still tear plants from neighborhood gardens?

Do you still have to scrape me from your shadow each morning?

Do you still –

 

“How’s Oklahoma?”