The Man Who Was Never a Father

Late on rent,

poring over a breath

meant to be a hiccup.

Cold coffee drapes from a finger,

a cigarette hisses,

I have no master.

—

A pencil burns itself whole,

searching for a word

that can hold both graphite and spite,

but no rooster crows its arrival.

—

His gadget slips from its not-summer dress,

wades into what should be a river—

but the Irishmen took the current,

the peonies never protested.

—

So he climbs inside the empty skin

of wife, of daughter,

murmurs:

Without you, without you, without you, without you,

there would be no firecracker grins.

—

And he feels it—

where bones once stood,

before that November

when the radio shattered

against parking meters,

the garage a wedding cake

frozen in abandonment,

and he took the gasp.