In green pen, the child ladders their wrist
to elbow, this the type of ritual that has no
center like wilderness or a bluejay. This is
a type of measurement the way the wind measures
the grass or the child builds their boyhood
into a box of pine, now a box of pine made car.
The child in their father’s garage is not a monster,
shaving the dead wood to curve and blunt like a bell,
curling its skin until it snows, meaning the sand of the wood
statics on the floor like blood. No, the child is not
a monster, but they love this sand at their feet
and the brush of sting red when they lower their hand
into the etch of the wood like soap. They practiced boyhood
this way, their flesh made doll with perfect boy teeth
perfect boy collar perfect boy hair that parted
like an answer. They remember buzzing away their hair
in the kitchen, the smell of red sauce with the fragile
meat, the sound of a blade being lowered. There’s something
to this ritual, the planet of their head fragmenting
to the floor like clearing your throat or an impossible
distance. And sweeping it away. Their father was home
then, their father trusted this boyhood as a hand trusts the
thistle it grips. Their father held the razor
to their head and of course the father drew blood
like a carnation or a baptism. The child didn’t know what
the blood was evidence for, though the child remembers
one night in the forest when they learned to build
a campfire. The child is not a monster, but here
they are with an axe in their hand, severing the wood
from itself like a prayer. The stars hiding in the far film
of the sky. The same branches tossing with notice.
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