I’m writing 
a love poem 
even with 
an American 
boot to 
my throat. 

I lick the croony 
sole and picture 
you in a fresh white 
wife pleaser. 

You got 
two fingers 
dripping money 
down my mouth. 

Our razor 
can do 
so much. 

your eyes I whisper to our son while he

          catches his breath. It is well past midnight

and he will not describe the face of what

          he fights to unsee. By his feet, the green

glow of a nightlight retreats into blue,

          slips softly to red. Above his bed: notes

we once had time to tape onto the latch

          of his lunchbox, flights of origami

swans, throwing stars and fortune tellers. When

          your turn comes to lie beside him, this is

the bridge he’s set to repeat: Always an

          angel, never a god—and so you hold

him close like a saint shadowed by the axe,

          cradling her own haloed head in her hands.

There are gods
    of fertility,
corn, childbirth,

& police
    brutality—this last
is offered praise

& sacrifice
    near weekly
& still cannot

be sated—many-limbed,
    thin-skinned,
its colors are blue

& black, a cross-
    hatch of bruise
& bulletholes

punched out
    like my son’s
three-hole notebooks—

pages torn
    like lungs, excised
or autopsied, splayed

open on a cold table
    or left in the street
for hours to stew.

A finger
    is a gun—
a wallet

is a gun, skin
    a shiny pistol,
a demon, a barrel

already ready—
    hands up
don’t shoot—

arms
    not to bear but bare. Don’t

dare take
    a left
into the wrong

skin. Death
    is not dark
but a red siren

who will not blow
    breath into your open
mouth, arrested

like a heart. Because
    I can see
I believe in you, god

of police brutality—
    of corn liquor
& late fertility, of birth

pain & blood
    like the sun setting,
dispersing its giant

crowd of light.