our son is dead

when it finally falls apart
there’s a kind of revulsion
a kind of nausea
and torturous irritation
when it finally falls apart
when it’s rent
and the heart starts to explode
for the stopped up shrieks
the screams
the pain
the endless arguments
when it finally lays down
it looks like something
much different
than what it was

and in the dissolution
the dissonant reflecting pool
churning froth
with echos caught up
in the throats of the newest
coping mechanical lies
the anti-inflammatory salves
in the salted wounds
of the crestfallen
and broken-hearted
something emerges

marauding capillaries throb
in the temples of the disappeared
the powerless forever leaning
on the empowered
in a sort of polemical atomic dance
now alaman left my sweet and fair
now do what i say
now give me all that you have
now accept blame
and subversion

when it finally falls apart
the story is lost
the ardent tryst shrouded
stowed and emboldened and fortified
with years of clarifying
and purifying
privately beautifully overstating
and where there were songs
and poems and protestations
and potential and wonder
there is black wreckage
only
jangled chords
tuneless recitations

this is the part
where george informs martha
our son is dead
and in the wake
and the wake that follows
there is nothing to find
save thorns
and rounds
glowing cigarette resin
and loss

if i could compress
heartache
in my wallee compression belly
and turn it to soaring buttresses
and spires and gain
i would
so do i try
failing
so do i wish
i could