by JS Gilbert
‘One day you’ll notice
birds,’ I plan to tell
my son, long before he
notices birds but long
after I notice them
myself. I won’t be able
to tell him why, just then
— sentimentalacian tripe
about flitting spirits on
swift wings of time — but,
really, I just want him
to remember that, once,
his father told him that
one day he’d notice birds.
My father took
the Barry Manilow
records; my mother
took me.
I was his first son,
yet he, I believe,
never once
made me cry.
Once you’ve squozen the recommended
allotment of shampoo relative to hair-girth
into your palm, be careful when letting go
the bottle for its pop-back-reset,
or the mintfused molecules will panic and,
with eucalyptous hands, cling to each
other in a desperate, schlurpy retreat back
into the globuly hive, leaving only an
invigorating, sulfite-free residue in the air,
your hair plastered, and unwashed.
Like the deep-cleansing morning I spent on the
front porch with my coffee and my dog and
suddenly remembered the day my mother changed
the locks on all the doors and my father,
and I hadn’t even showered.
and my son said his was people who say ‘baggies’
but i thought peeves would be more prevalent
and i replied ‘you must know more drug dealers than i do’
and i imagined wesley snipes new jacking with ‘baggies’
and ice-t laughing in his face
but my son had lost interest
