Am I wicked if I try to forget your birthday, Dad?
I covet the end to obsession. I didn’t call Mom,
I gorged on ice-cream-sandwiches, the kind we ate all night. They are my rife reminder
of sticky Nintendo & Zelda, & if only I had Link’s power to time-warp;
ocarina in hand, but it’s a fish skeleton-marimba, dirge-ing back to a day full of turtles.
Moses-me, sucking dry riptides & ripping out your broken-heart,
how it doesn’t support the all of you, failing & drowning-heart,
I would break the fourth-dimension for you, Dad.
Replace the ventricles & part the hemorrhaging sea, give your heart a shell, steel-turtle-
walls-&-chambers. I’m sorry I can’t be all-powerful so-sorry & I’m sorry, Mom
for how my voice ice-shivers if his name leans on my lips. I think I really am wicked. I warp
myself to fit inside a grief-jar, zoo-d, hoping no one finds my fakeness, the walls a reminder
of the ways people dissect me, see me as dangerous, untouchable, alone, a reminder
that my obsession with salt-water, glass bubbles, hands & hearts,
all stalk from you. Obsession over a grief that no-one wants to hear about. So, I ask, warp
my image that you glimpse from Heaven, or Hell, or the ground, anywhere you are, Dad.
If you can see it, & I don’t know if you can, sprinkle flour & yeast & bake it to be like Mom’s,
her seamless snap of grief I can’t fix. It’s unfair to her, but I’m wicked, I said, & the turtles
should have lashed me away, not you. I can’t believe another poem is like this. Remind
me why I even try to write anything else. I fucking swear, even this poem’s heart-
space is about you, so why did I even try to write a sestina? Maybe I’ll warp
this poem to a new place, completely scratch you out of it, Dad,
& bout with a new kind of imp, one other than how I can’t forgive myself if I’m not Mom’s
savior. I will write about turtles,
but not the ones that have traces of you, no, these born-again-turtles
are full on froot loops & have cinnamon-sunsets carved on their backs, a reminder
to hold the love & the clear days & the foggy in my tummy, instead of Mom’s
ghosty slippers. The turtles will help me clean-out my closet. I can throw away my hearty
turtle-neck sweater, a child-self sheath, or the sweatshirt with Dad's
a boat on the front, a hand-stitched memorial. But even my warp-
ing of that stanza can’t safely run away from the obsession in my head. I can’t warp
to a coveted utopia when all I am retells you. It’s okay, I’ll fit both models of turtle
inside me. There’s room for all sorts of sea-creatures, & you, Dad.
Even if one day is off-kilter, unbearable, I’ll look at my calendar for a reminder
that the next one will be rife with you. I’ll clean-out my wicked heart
on page after page of poetry & it will never be done with. & Mom,
I’ll have her read every. one. It’s only fair to her, my abalone-glimmer, my Mom,
whose tears amplify the untold & unbound clearness of her star-shine. I know I can’t warp
or wind her grief into a berry-basket with patches over the holes, but I can give her heart
a warm night’s rest when I say that there is nothing to forgive. Next year, I’ll buy a turtle
nightlight on your birthday & make sure she knows. It’ll be my reminder
of you, Dad. Of warm, blanket-shimmer, Dad, of open, crystal-obsession, Dad,
you are my heart. Mom,
Dad’s here. In me, his memory won’t warp
away. Night-turtle, be my safety, my reminder.