Mud smeared prisms, cracked

along the edges of faith and insanity.

We used to have picnics under that tree.

I caught a fly between my finger and my thumb.

He begged me to let him go and drunkenly I obliged,

but only to watch him drown in the contents of my glass

fifteen minutes later.

No man can be an island because they gave that job to a turtle.

I'm floating down a river and I see my father,

trapped between the amber sky and the violet shore.

He looks like that fly, so I close my eyes.

I only have two of them, which is why I find it hard

to see more than one thing at a time.

We eat dirt cake and sand pie when you're not around.

That tall, sturdy tree didn't give you any shade

as you fixed the rope to its bravest branch.

Slip it around your sweaty head like you slipped

That necklace around Mom's neck. Or, like God

slipped those cosmic rings around Saturn.

Don't tell me that He doesn't have favorites.

Middle children don't keep their youth

when they start taking walks in the woods.

Even the Turtle smiles brighter upon the hatchlings

who storm the beaches.

I still see you with my eyes closed.

All of you.

Varied shades of black and almost olive green.

I smell your pipe over rot and careless gin.

I know how far you had to fall when they cut you down.

I know that parts of you were stolen by the leaves.