Recurring Nightmare After My Father’s Death
I am a boy again by your side.
You pluck stars out of the sky
like white raspberries
from an impossible tangle
of brambles dangling
over my head out of reach.
You eat them one-by-one,
sluicing them across your tongue,
swallowing them—eyes closed—
until finally your body vanishes
in an incandescent flash
that burns me to ash
and sears my shadow
onto scorched earth.
Sadly, we are not blood related. Still, though,
once when I crossed my hands on my chest
and flew into myself, there he was, laughing.
The Meaning of Life According to Dizzy Gillespie
Never play only one note when there are so many
notes bound up within that one to unspool
into a universe where a billion billion stars
still aren’t enough to fill the emptiness
of the heavens we all hope to join one day
after the echo of our last note finally fades.