It was at first fire

Then volcanoes 

Now the latest fear keeping 

My daughter’s door open

Through the night

Is that of being afraid

Is there a narrator in this show 

She asks as the authority  

Of the voiceover in the cartoon

Loses what I imagine as credibility 

In her six-year-old mind

It’s a creation myth

The one she’s watching

Because it was intentional 

For months before her conception 

I was afraid of having sex

As though there’s an answer 

That would eclipse this 

New-found complication

How can I not be scared 

Of being scared she asks

Never trust the authority 

Of the narrator I want 

To tell her but I’d be lying

after Tina Takemoto

I will paint us together

in lemon and burnt shoyu.

I will squeeze us out of

flour, water, yeast

while you dress

behind the thin curtain

while you flatten

lapel, collar, slacks

in our tightly ironed

tar paper life.

Your tie clip, carved from

ancient wood and not

the real topaz you deserve.

Outside, we shuffle in dust

flap powder

from between our feathers.

I used to be a swamp.

In this government aviary

dust storms can’t be predicted

unlike the government

which splits atoms

the way it did your chest.

Spilled you

on the ancient sea bed.

The mountains blow

their alien breath in you

while sleek muscle men

cactus across my humid eyes.

They don’t stop

to light my cigarette

or palm a slice of

fresh, warm bread.

Now bluebirds trill

from my cuffs

and it’s time to clock out.

Beyond the perfect

frame of this prison city

desert peaks buzz

the rich, rich song

of my hunger.

And what, in fact, is dignity? In those

Who have it pure, it is the soul’s repose, 

The base of character—no mere reserve 

That springs from pride, or want of mental nerve.

The dignity that wealth, or station, breeds, 

Or in the breast on base emotion feeds, 

Is easy weighed, and easy to be sized—A bastard virtue, much to be despised.

True dignity is like a summer tree. 

Beneath whose shade both beast, and bird, and bee,

When by the heated skies oppressed, may come,

And feel, in its magnificence, at home; 

Or rather like a mountain which forgets

Itself in its own greatness, and so lets 

Vast armies fuss and fight upon its sides,

While high in clouds its peaceful summit hides,

And from the voiceless crest of glistening snow, 

Pours trickling fatness on the fields below;

Repellant force, that daunts obtrusive wrong,

And woos the timid steps of right along;

And hence a garb which magistrates prepare,

When called to judge, and really seem to wear. 

In framing character on whate’er plan, 

‘Tis always needed to complete the man, 

The job quite done, and Dignity without, 

Is like an apple pie, the fruit left out. 

<sup>By which a strip of land became a hole in time

            —Durs Grünbein</sup>

Grandfather I cannot find,

flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,

what country do you belong to:

where is your body buried,

where did your soul go

when the road led nowhere?

Grandfather I’ll never know,

the moment father last saw you

rips open a wormhole

that has no end: the hours

became years, the years

forever: and on the other side

lies a memory of a memory

or a dream of a dream of a dream

of another life, where what happened

never happened, what cannot come true

comes true: and neither erases

the other, or the other others,

world after world, to infinity—

If only I could cross the border

and find you there,

find you anywhere,

as if you could tell me who he is, or was, 

or might have become: 

no bloodshot eyes, or broken

bottles, or praying with cracked lips

because the past is past and was is not is—

Grandfather, stranger,

give me back my father—

or not back, not back, give me the father

I might have had:                                 

there, in the country that no longer exists,

on the other side of the war—