How I First Came to Know You: II

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HOW I FIRST CAME TO KNOW YOU: II


This, then, is how you should pray 

in a house full of boys: 


Our Brother, playing tag perhaps, or wrestling 

haphazardly around the living 


room, ignore the weary voice 

saying keep your hands to yourself. 


Take me instead in an armlock 

and toss me into a table to shake 


loose the dim lamp I see by.

In the silence after the shatter, don’t say 

 

something about needing to go. 

Don’t leave me there, alone 

 

and in the dark, but keep watch

as I hit my knees to gather in the pieces. 


And when I open myself, crying 

out a harmony to the song 


trickling on the carpet

in its slow, persistent melody, get dad.


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