I have never known us not sprinting as if sung from somewhere else

And in the distance men send bullets into the sky and sing hallelujah

and their song is the unstitching of a scab    and maybe I look out the window

and mistake the copper for a star        maybe I mistake the violence     for home

MERCY, MERCY, HIM

The first time I realized Marvin Gaye was dead

was the first time I realized my father wasn’t joking

when he said               I could kill you

Please     forgive him

for what he believes his rage demands

forgive him       as I have failed to

I know Marvin like I know my father

gazing up in half laughter       venom in the breeze

if I must die     and I must       let him be the gun

A death is only like a firework

in how it can become a mistake

in the space between rooms

When Marvin died      his brother blamed fireworks

a man can die from how his country celebrates

a man can die from another man

When he wrapped his hands around my throat

I wore his callouses like pearls     threw the second punch

asked no mercy    except   God spare the man who is killing me

Forgive me     I had forgotten it was the beginning of July

my vision populated with false stars

what could be misremembered     as fireworks

TANKA FOR THE 4TH OF JULY

I will spend the day

surviving which is the most

un-American

use of my body since I

spat loose a bullet and laughed

ZEALOTS OF STOCKHOLM OR ELEGY FOR THE STILL ALIVE

After Childish Gambino

I. MY FATHER SAYS GOODBYE AGAIN AND AGAIN

I miss your grandfather he taught me how to say goodbye

by never saying it   every dawn brings a cardinal   his wings splay goodbye

He showed up at my Junior year dorm with a six pack

already gone     he was dying    never told me    by that May    goodbye

What did I know then about leaving besides the smoke

I could chuckle out?   What did I know of gone outside my own gray goodbye?

In the dreams he is still buried     sometimes he is a dragonfly

fragments of light pierce the little cathedral of his wings  in each ray  a goodbye

The night you were born     a cardinal landed on the windowsill

feeble resurrection under a blue moon    his red feathers a bouquet of goodbye

Never let me haunt you    nobody you’ve known was built to stay

burn me    take me anywhere but St. Louis   let the ash spray goodbye

All I need in this life is to see you further than he saw me get   Your spine

ran the length of my palm once    little rosary    I pray you get to say goodbye

II. MOURNING MY NOT-DEAD FATHER