Status Updates From The City in Which I Love You

It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy's supplications
and a father's love add up to silence.

You think of sea-roads and earth-roads
you traveled once, and always
in the same direction: away.

It wasn't the bright hems of the Lord's skirts
that brushed my face and I opened my eyes
to see from a cleft in rock His backside;

it's a wasp perched on my left cheek. I keep
my eyes closed and stand perfectly still
in the garden till it leaves me alone

My father's hand
cupping my chin, weighing
tenderness between us,
pressing my mother's hip, weighing desire

I hear ocean sounds and a history of rain.
Somewhere a streetlamp,
and my brother never coming.
Somewhere a handful of hair and a lost box of letters.
And everywhere, fire,
corridors of fire, brick and barbed wire.