Dad’s Loudmouth Soup
Sore back, busted hip, a pimple in my left ear,
headache, toothache, scabbed up
knuckles from dry winter skin, plus
GERD, a lazy eye, double-vision, thrice
broken wrists, rage towards my mother,
anxiety, and a stone-dumb brother to boot.
Not to mention the scorched mess
in Iraq, Kashmir, Sudan,
Somalia, New Orleans, and Gitmo, too.
All of this, days smeared with violence,
piles up: heavy, each loss
a car crushed at the junkyard of oblivion,
then stacked in sad towers, the reek
of motor oil, spilt gasoline, the reek
of stale beer and cigarettes
when the party’s over and on come the lights:
to your living room, trashed, regret
and vomit clogging your nose,
plugging the arteries of your spirit,
and you, my son, born into this,
soon to bear it, heave forward:
a horse born with notched shoulders
to fit the harness and plow, endure the whip..