Elephant Guns

Daddy's Fireworks

Llovía.

I know October is here when he has lips of packed smoke

and I dream of her olive skin in India,

all so temporarily permanent-

Rome calls me in thick, brisk whispers

while some unknown foreign terrain pulls me from the air

and into its swirl of streets and sweeps and lights

like my body knew its own place and

hurried home through the crowds.

I know the time is drawing near when I feel like the fourth of July

and I remember the pierce of blast as he unloaded into

summer's hot charcoal sparks,

the trembling blue stars spoke volumes as I covered my ears

squealing my protest and youthful fear like

the fly of fur

over the fireworks-

dreaming of a suppertime with no gunpowder and no countermines.

leave the airplanes be, daddy.

even some little black sheep

prefer peace.

I know I am older when the hours stretch tight ache

and the shifting atmosphere invades my knees with divisions of

burning bridges. Rebuilt,

then taken by storm as his old bones sigh,

the children asleep in the submarine,

the faded skin of old flame sets in

and the strength seems to emanate from

an Italian hospital ages away

where I first learned to feel safe within,

alone. Myself.

I know the months creep closer to colder when the turtle pond grows

in my eyes, when the windchimes

harmonize with her German,

those wrinkles draped below her eyes

and I recall the animal talk of another time

upon the peeling sea foam ledge of water's edge,

sad yet yielding pine,

older than me.

Mecci's home now her fountain of heaven.

Daddy's supposed safehouse.

up up and up onto the wet deck, remembering sudden dark eyes under the sweep of infinity,

the stars so sharp, so penetrating

blinding with their watchful beacons of subtle idolatry,

before the fall and yet after they came to earth
as lightning beams of alien
sea towers along the coast of me.

as he alongside the jacuzzi,
the old torn porch swing with jagged, damp stuffing

clammy boardwalk of old faith and new breath.

And years and years ago, the puppies laid under the shelter of stone furnace,

the wolf dog escaping the supposedly most impenetrable of wood

to drag home prizes of slain sheep and

crumpled rags of deer.

In a year's time i would again long to celebrate the Lilliputian villages,

the dark creep of thick beer,

those fraudulent yodeler hats of chintzy yellow.

and I'm in my black slouch boots of last year's faux suede,

recalling that surge of self-anointed appropriate autumn,

still post surgery and craving affirmation,

aching for a tenderness to slough off the small ridged scars, stichless but ruthless

the softness of him brought to me repletion

beneath the snowing leaves,

rivulets of reason in a season of callous change.

and multiple journeys down the line, I apologize,
your young bride
the failure of Tugger a sign, the denial of free spirits,
the solitude of that fateful flight

into the core.

that chasm of vacillation
and the magic school bus game,
the Seattle tequila stroll.
silent betrayal.

on the streets of that chilly Northwest city in her tights and new cantaloupe sweater

she strode past dark-skinned men and imagined the texture of their lips,

lost senses of scattered pieces, a puzzle left behind to simmer in November's dress.

And then the bullets.
the size of stale grudges
and the most simple of celestial deviations,

metal is broken with a click of wrist and shift of hip
one snap of alignment upon the lines
the cycles collide

and once again
intercession of fortuity finds you here,
staring down the barrel and
sliding
like eager beads of sweat
upon your mother's forehead
when she promised herself this was the last time.