Years after your death,
I am still wondering
What you would say
To the dirty clothing
Piling like hay
In stacks, in my room
Growing, as I promise
To take care of it soon.
I’m not around very often;
My grandmother sits
With company of television.
I come home with things to do
To avoid doing things
I eat my dinner alone, upstairs.
I bring the dishes down next morning
I examine your workbench-
Wrenches, organized by size,
The bullets in ranks, notes in files
and I realize I am not a man,
That none of my friends are men,
And suddenly, I am a child again
With years of bad deeds beneath him
Needing a decade of scolding
Needing just one moment of you.
I am still wondering
What you would say
To the dirty clothing
Piling like hay
In stacks, in my room
Growing, as I promise
To take care of it soon.
I’m not around very often;
My grandmother sits
With company of television.
I come home with things to do
To avoid doing things
I eat my dinner alone, upstairs.
I bring the dishes down next morning
I examine your workbench-
Wrenches, organized by size,
The bullets in ranks, notes in files
and I realize I am not a man,
That none of my friends are men,
And suddenly, I am a child again
With years of bad deeds beneath him
Needing a decade of scolding
Needing just one moment of you.