Please God let me kiss back
the still writhing breath of a soldier to his daughter's
knees/O Lord damn all but my hands so she still may grow
with a man's shoulders to remember/let not the bullets but
the rot/the sickness/this sweet sweet child of shrapnel crawl out of my throat
to kiss her instead. There is a man at the very core of me choking
on his grief/a father's father/a boy/black & crying into a darkening cell
at the centre of me. He is the wailing of my marrow. The rattling of the bones/the deranged/the black dog sick
from hunger, gnawing at my hand. I have no more sadness left to feed him.