I Cast It Away, My Body:

^{after Georgia O’Keeffe’s First Drawing of Blue Lines, 1916}

Because two brothers make a body where none existed

God drew two bodies as one went crooked

There is a war between us. And I am losing

My brother, fabulous night panther & copper-horned

Struck by lightning, electric blue: two lines

My father pulls two ribs and one snaps into angles

In the waiting room, a body begins to fold in on itself

A body begins to pull a breathing tube from out of itself

There is a war between us. And I am losing

My brother, all copper feathers and dragon tail, chosen

In the mud of a battlefield, you’ll find my heart

Buried in the soft red clay, my body

Broke and anchored to this earth, a bolt

Jettisoned, my brother is my father’s first son