Between the freeway
               and the gray conning towers
of the ballpark, miles

We planted it in May of thirty-three.
Strange times for us. How could a child explain
The helpless eagle on the ice-box door,

They love me.
Each morning they fill the strongbox
in my chest with grass
and salt pellets—I have good hallucinations.

Of dedication, a child’s
need to complete his chosen
role before the snows came down

The light sifts down from the naked bulb
he’s quickened with a string. He speaks
to no one out of the well of his anger.

You would have to go down
into black earth like my father
gold light against shadow

You can tell by the way the sky
has turned rose and the blue houses
have begun to open their eyes,

How could he answer? How could anyone be
as beautiful as his mother. He had to lie
because he had to.

Eighteen years ago my cousin Arthur
   died alone in a hotel
         in Perugia,

The Doctor fingers my bruise. 
“Magnificent,” he says, “black 
at the edges and purple