mass

W/ the leap
blackbird draws my gaze across the window
where the power lines have crossed a path behind the yellow shed
rusted, now, still in the memory I had received top marks for,
why-song, the body my mother reminds me, why-song
and the mass in my father's chest, isolated and cruel in the dark
of him.

My mother and I stand opposite each other in the hallway, leaning,
the smell of burnt pollen, the golden crusts of it on the old machines
give way.

Frankford to Knights Rd to Aria
Patty w/ a Y social worker calls me
"How many steps to the house?"
"Three."

Questions that I hate to answer.
Details of our lives that need not matter.
It is not only so far away but obviously very close
subdued purple of the walkways   Main St
that leads me out back, far from where I entered.

Not here, the Pavilion, against the grey backs of generators,
a maze of malady,
a cough somewhere,
a hurdle.