Poem-a-Day

The things I know 
are almost completely 
in the direction of the familial, 
like a bird who 
is flapping and not
thinking, it just 
infinities into air, 
and hovers 
around a seed 
shoot—
all instinctual all
reactionary, like 
me dabbing 
a cracked phone 
with cotton when I 
swiped a slit out 
of my thumb; 
like a different bird 
who, peaking into 
a blind, watched 
something unchirpable 
happen; 
as I wait for them 
to see past what I am 
chasing, I long to be 
myself today, or a version 
of myself today; like a bird 
cawing other birds 
to its sounds 
pointing with its 
beak at us shifting 
angrily 
in our deluge of name, 
as I command a pattern 
most violent, to 
dissolve; 
like a human bird, 
working to not be thrown 
down the stairs because
he shouldn’t fly in the
house, and like a house,
I don’t own, being
painted by 
the ambulances that come
to pick me up with
bandages for my 
wounds— 
you never liked birds
anyway they filled our 
broken chimney, infinitying
around the dusty black 
mats and holey birch 
wood, you called 
sparrows, hummingbirds 
and crows, dogs; you 
called me, son; like a
bunch of birds breaking
out of their comfortable 
prisons 
into prisms of flap
and fold; like a boy 
sharing his name 
with a 
mockingbird—
am I supposed to 
be like you, are our 
names just an 
assemblage 
of funneled angsts 
that we’ve felt from 
our fathers?—am I 
supposed to be stronger; 
look at my chest; 
look at my flank and foot; 
my rump and bill; 
shadows of broken wing.