Invocation
How long you spent
waiting for the thin
and bony words.
The way that song
of soft complaint
was not pretty
as your mother.
The way you loved
her photograph,
her country’s war
fixed well inside
your father’s missing
teeth, and shouts
of how like you
were to loathe
that worried cage
of soft complaint.
The way you loved
ghosts far more
than a touch
or a clean bed.