corona 14.

I discovered your artifacts
sprawled across my map
the autistic child
flamingo inflamed face
colitis any child-
hood disease even polio
to keep the train moving
in an eastern direction
this morning I folded
towels warm from the dryer
found a letter with oddly
dotted eyes a girl’s eyes
a girl with a crush
making her way backward
from cloth to paper to lint
I barely twitched
wished you calamity
and ill fortune

coil your scaly tail right down the street brother I am tired collapsing burning damping burning damping my window open for the world to watch if it kneels if it crawls low enough it can see clear to the meadow rabbits ears pressed back building their Easter diorama their vinegar hole

empty head empty head empty head
the truth about New Orleans
is I had history there too
you denied my bared breast
in the elevator the river’s brown stink
as Napoleon counted spoons at St. Helena
we sought lesser saints
Saint Diphtheria
Saint Eczema
Saint Genital Herpes

you stuffed newspapers into your shoes stuck with a boy’s milk-voice I never really wanted to know you I could have been your mother in a gravy-spattered housecoat but I lack the instinct that keeps us from devouring our children their pink pink meat sweet as decay or an infestation of bedbugs any illness that mimics a hillside covered with sweetpeas

a letter twisted in the tide pools
among jellyfish spider crabs and sand fleas
bees hovered over the woman’s body
I don’t forgive
I have as much forgiveness in me as a cat

the godhead pushed deeper than you imagined and we could not stop eating you were the noise maker in the monastery only my kitchen betrayed me water sprung from the tap as bees hovered over meat gone bad

I found a poison that slapped you down
don’t say a thing was key
I am diminished for having known you