My father is birdsong. A leather fortress. The saliva used to grease open my hyena’d backend. My father is not my father but a reenactment. A living ghost story. A bright yellow, the warmest color. A man ready with a gag and a whip. An unlucky horseshoe. A death sentence. An effigy of men that learn in the dark. My father is someone else’s

         actual father. A whale’s grave. A scatter of bones. The music’s coldest laugh. A goat’s anthem. My father is Daddy and Devil and Dancing and Damnation. The impossible beast. A closet of tailored dresses. My father is a hushed choir. Duct tape and a pipe bomb. A smoke-show faggot. Always burning. Always burning the city to the sky.