“Things I Could Never Tell My Mother”
is a poem I wrote
when I was younger
about stuff I’d done
that would upset her.
Now, she has cancer.
I don’t feel bad for
writing it. It helped me say
some of those things
to her face. Things
I haven’t told my
mother: Get better.
I don’t know who
I’ll be after you die.
Gold Dog Moon
Those images keep showing up in my friend’s poems:
gold objects, wild dogs, and I’m so sick of the fucking moon, he says,
and I can’t see the moon through my window because it’s raining.
I prayed to God to let the steeple of the Living Water Baptist Church
blow over and crush the house of the pastor next door,
the fake-gold weathervane splitting his red, swollen head.
He’s a nasty man who won’t let my dog shit
in his pristine yard even though I always pick up.
Even though he said, I love dogs,
but poop leaves residue that gets on the children,
I haven’t seen one child in his yard.
I don’t care that he likes his yard.
I care that after I apologized he kept yelling.
Everyone on the block says he’s nasty, too.
He calls the police to tow cars,
reports neighbors for noise who are having picnics.
I want to tell everyone he’s a pedophile,
so he’ll have an actual problem,
never have to worry about dogs or children.
And though he’s probably not,
I don’t believe any child is safe in a church with a sign that says:
Independent * Fundamental * Bible Believing.
I grew up in a church like that and because of that
still hate myself a little.
Sometimes when I walk my dog I flip off his house
because I know he can see through the window.
He watches everyone from his recliner through the cheap, lace curtains.
Every day my dog leaves gold puddles at the edge of his property
which is the edge of my property.
Sometimes he stops to film me when he’s driving.
He’s trying to intimidate me.
I want to moon him.
Instead I wave at the camera.
I saw him once with his wife on the sidewalk.
I wanted to ask her to blink twice
if I should call the police —
I’m not sure she’s free.
Diagnosis
After the car hit the deer, the animal rolled over the hill and lay still
near the grown-over church. My father said we should check
because the game warden might need to shoot it. Near the ditch
he shined a flashlight — two small dots like bullseyes stared back
from the black. She pulled herself up — back leg dangling like
a broken coat hanger. She might make it, dad said, if it’s just her leg.