Brambles Beneath the Brown Brush

Brambles beneath the brown brush, 

Bend to each step. Use the wings, my son,

The ones astrapped your ankles––

Push, prickers gently away, lest their

Hookteeth rip blood out your veins––

Punishment for haste.

Dodging thorns in twirl––

You endow such splendid character

To these dead things,

These thickets that bind the child

Cross the sore earth. These I must clipper,

Toss clear the trail.

Desolation, it flounders between us. 

The green youth in your hand taunts the

Wind out my chest––

Leaves me a gasping shell on the

Shore to fine sanity. One day removed

From drown, from deaf’s finite tones.

Dad, embrace me. The rays

Reveal the thickets free from

Wicked shadowplay.

I can only abstract your father’s grip–– 

He whose steady hand lead you age

After age circling down deaf’s drain.

He who wrung your corpse cross

Shattered green glass, scalped

Your hippie brown hair at last––

What crude brush tore your soul to

Shreds? What deadend was naught 

But dead end rocks, a handgun

Mouthed on the riverbend.

What spoke the trickling silence 

Then? A mom’s milk voice

Drawing her babe back home? Or

A pair of begotten eyes, seated at the

Barcrawl’s final wretched throne? 

––March 5, 2020