Spike Lee showed up in a theater,
West Tisbury, across the pond.

That was where I made my home
That Kennedy kingdom by the sea, as the summer ended.

The dying grass carried the ocean,
Until it collapsed into the concrete mess of worn soles.

Now the children gather in assembly,
Staring the pinch of time dead in the eye.

Claire sits next to me, a minute
Alertness creasing her brow.

Old scarecrow body,
The hard plastic curving into spines.

We are sedate,
Actions no longer measured with panic.

Like that good dream I had,
The lake glowing as the cup cried.

And the reeds brushing against thighs,
Already dark.

And the stars scraping against the sky,
A heartbeat for August rain.

But no threats came,
The dam had been built up in steel.

And no panic could touch me,
I had left everything behind.

When the floodgates open again, and they will
I will survive Johnstown, Jonestown.

Though lights burst along the river
The footage will not suffice.

That smoky year, when I learned massacre.
A cicada’s cycle for shock,

In the August floods,
Before the September settling,

Now passed, with a cot
Rusting in my room.

Where the sun never dances,
And cheap glass dusts the floor.

I have kept the flower as evidence,
As Pop Pop tended to dusty suits.

I have straightened the rugs of sin,
And turned the room to candlelight.

I have, I have, Lost Boy
Returned to the chrysalis that wrought me.

I’ll speak truth as my father,
I’ll cook meals mother taught me.

What does a bird know,
When it sees the wire door ajar?

A bright simmer of shock,
That senseless ecstasy.