on july

run like thunder through

the good side of town.

stop when it gets ugly

enough, coughs your father

on whiskey /

Diet Coke: his all

-American

medicine.

over the radio, your bad

high as drums. they

took my mother

land last Autumn, beat

her into staccato

submission.

(I hated it there.

I’d never tell.)

my larynx a subtle

sort of lie

like poetry or screwing or

singing until you’re

white.

but it’s pretty

here I know.

here the roadkill

tastes more like cinnamon

toast crunch

but I still hear

my grandmother

on her cobweb chair

running sonatas

through her hands:

trembling,

sun-bleached,

alive.