Black Poppy


The middleflesh
looks rotting

at first. A silt—
fist, a crow,

wet, twisted
with sleep.

There is, always somewhere

near, drizzling bee—

music, hell—
static,

in this black
heat.

I remember
my father

in a black raincoat

pulling a glove

from his pocket,
crumpled

like the ghost
of a

slap. Where
is he

going? I
grew, middlerotten,

half cloud, half
gone, my bones

flowering,
then broken,

and so
on

through many pages

of rain.