David

Inspired by Sylvia Plath's "Daddy"

I met a thin boy named David

who you would not like very much.

With striped pants and a crutch

fastened out of an easel. He took

my purple fingers in the cold clutch

of his left hand

whilst his right steadied on

the far wall of the hot train

still careening through the rain

and steaming through the pain. 

We rode like that for four hours

as the spokes turned through towers

of grey-green trees.

We rode like that with blood pooling

at the bottoms of our stomachs.

Sloshing like the last two scoops

of goulash, lulled in the motions

of reciprocating arms and tin bells.

Over the last hill before the knells.

Over the last hill before David died. 

The sun turned over in its sleep

as the doors opened into the camp.

The bog light blew in a hue of lamp

light blue, and red and s**t and damp.

F**k me, this can't be Poland.

We must have overshot it and

landed somewhere in other-land

or perhaps as far as no-land.

The ash felt more alive than David

did, in his prayers before night.

Otherworldly flesh clinging to my 

toes, coiling like vipers around 

halves of babies like stolen pieces

of potatoes or bread. the earth consumed

them all, one-after-another.

 

It consumed David like an after-

dinner mint, it will not be as

courteous for me. 

I am, am still alive.

Do you hear me?

Do you hear me over the rain?

Spilling my guts into the sand

feeding the crabs at the edge of the land,

feeding the crabs pieces of me by hand.

feeding the crabs my soul,

Where did you take David?

and why did you take him from me?

Why did you take him from his pedestal? 

From his art and from me?

From his blood and from me?

I will feed him too, to the murky way.

Do you hear me?

I will return to the sea deep beneath

where the coral will barricade us both,

where even you cannot reach.