Digging Up My Fathers

What do we do with our fathers,
surrendered,
disfigured,
ambiguous in the light
that opens up the body,

as we sit at an outdoor table they just left
& collect the butts from their ashtrays?

What do we do with them?
Break them?
Sour them?
Drown them?
What year was it
when we were born in their arms,
when fathers were others
and we looked for them already
in their smoky beds,
before the light bulbs burst over
our feeble hair?

I know now that we mustbreak them.
That yesterday’s world
was never so distant (we
could see it
from the womb).

I’ve opened the window in my room. It should
be enough to throttle my fathers
among the mausoleums of leaves.

Here is one,
his yellowish head,
so well-appointed,
sinks into my blood like a precious word.

& here is another,
scarlet in face,haughty & shaven,
who says that all that could be done
has
been
done,
as he bends to the ground
and divides
into a hundred grasshoppers.

A cremation of fathers
makes its way through my breath
as I brush my teeth.

A fistful of fathers
leaves bruises on my face.

An anthology of fathers
is tightly sealed within my vocal cords.

A dustbin of fathers
resounds on my ribs,
like fingers tapping along
its galvanized depths.

An ampulla of Vater of fathers
descends into my bowels.

An NGO of fathers
arrives on all my shores.

A storm of fathers
ruined my harvest,
killed my beasts,
swallowed my
possessions.

But we must return to our fathers.

On the other side. A little further now.

In the choked dusk of evening.

Under a tent.In an open field.

I eat my fathers, like hosts.

I drink my fathers, filling myself to the brim.