Hawk

Supposed to capture how my parents met, from mom's perspective. Violence.

The Carpenter swoops down,
a rust-bar twilight,
hat scorched with a fast-food logo.

I peel him back,
beneath the boy, the artist—
poems my Father once sang.

Eyes that leave children
bootless.
Hawk-fragile, predator.

He will desert me
before he crosses the floor.
I am earth-strong, whiskey neat.

Junkie eyes, stammer,
boy-struck jokes,
apple-rotten truths.

Mine lie better:
star-black,
a see-saw void.

He drains me, I drain him.
Superior, inferior—
rapture.

One, two, three brutes abandoned,
but me—
never.

Every man I touch,
he claws with rage.
Emma, mirror-eyed, twin.

He's alive, sweating,
after the overdose.
She runs away.

She paints rainbows and corpses,
like he paints houses
for the rich and their school steps.

Inheritance.
I hate that.
I hate them both.

Get out.
GET OUT.
GET OUT.

Daughter, take my curse.
Starve—
I have no beak.

Fuck him.
White-trash class.
Trailer-park, Reagan, needle.

Bible-whipped bird.
Dead Kennedys on cassette.
Purses stolen, arrested.

Mother sealed my fate.
In juvie—
kissing girls, skipping class.

Teeth crumble.
Black Sabbath.
Black. Black. Black.

The brutes are gone.
Child-support unpaid.
Cradle-rock violence.

Gash, slash, cut.
His cheek
Joker-wide.

Drip. Drip. Drip.
Sherry blood,
almost Mom.

Beast blasted.
Weak, he strikes:
pushes, burns, rips.

Homeless again,
again homeless.
For fifty years, or ten.

And yet—
I am home with him.
Motel-6, black-star glue.
Mouths bloody blue:
Fused.