life.

never moving backward;

you run away from me with
this reckless smile
that sometimes I think is
the saddest beautiful smile because
there's something so fleeting
in watching it so spontaneously
and genuinely react and change
tongue pressed against teeth
the hissing sound of joy
of giggled air explosion
into uncontrolled laughter
and squeals

no moment frozen in memory
just continual movement forward
time's effort to leave me behind and
you won't even realize it
until you're old like me and you
see how like a mushroom I can
only be the stem and you looking
out from the bulb won't see
I've atrophied and pushed you
into the future where beneath
the shadows I watched you
grow and

                 even now the years have
begun piling up and soon you will
not remember what it was like to be
held and I'll always have that memory
like a phantom pain watching you walk
so lovely on your own but recalling
how it was in those beautiful days when
you needed me and raised your arms
to call for my embrace and breathed
the slightest sign of relief when your
head rested on my shoulder
and I could whisper in your ear
that daddy loves you

The babe

The lost lay beads of smoking tears

a gift they grant is the suffering of life
their smile swell

Waking up to take care of crying babe

I'm on stairs leaning against the wall holding him, teetering

unsure how I got here

not on the stair

I am a father.

Waking in bed paralyzed

to next coming twenty years

a black shroud
shaped as sinister as newborn
skull

head hung on limp rooted neck
stands at the doorway

as an arch
lurched

leaning slightly like to burp

his future falling toward
me

I could not move to escape.

Inherently

This is the womb
     an imploding star
pulling within my essence
     gripping my cock

I am all but memory
     walking in the rain
the sound of subway tracks
     moaning hum
tick of old fashioned clocks
     grandfathers
hands

should I lay my body
     there on the kitchen floor
cold metallic grates
     mortuary song lists
where I gave birth
     to nothing

rip the baby out
     I ripped the baby out
placing roughly
     on the hard thick
wooden table

around the limp body
     a circle of six chairs
six bodies six mouths
     waiting patiently to feed
to devour the brain

kiss them cheeks all up

the bus opens up

around the hill

against the curve

away from the light

the baby standing on her lap

jerks the opposite way

two women in the back cannot resist

the pull

the shrieking brake

the mangled exterior

they would spend the day

kissing

what about the baby's head

the head-on collision

how the bus would kick

think about the baby

your lips on its cheek

dead tire marks in the road

a sheet of glass