I Investigate Terraforming in My 30s
BY KEITH S. WILSON
how a kiss may be alike
but isn’t quite,
or how every photo from Kentucky—
how you used to sigh—is only
now a likeness. Or how this bandaged light
upends the bruise that became
the sky: I liked you, I like liked
you. And we held each other
as we made our child-
hoods hush; we strained
to merge like trees into a custom. We held
to each other’s hands
even when our notes
were misaligned. We would,
without half-trying, alight one upon the other.
What is gravity to our horns? We reached
and tore each other plain as walls
or erstwhile countries,
and the dream became a sun,
beneath me, the land, the fade
of wing, my every instrument
a lyre’s vital music, my every simile, a flame.
Tercets
BY KEITH S. WILSON
love it’s only gotten worse my father can’t stop
saying your name like a war his nation lost or a miracle
that saved him from an undertow unprompted
you rise like a body from a lake before dinner
grace has never been more biblical than in the gasp
about your name the quiet
being the inverse of a heartbeat i depended on a season
for which there is no dress and i say yeah
and i say yeah dad but you love are a tragedy
in my father’s eyes my reflection having just shaved
my skin is tender i say before he can say
i remember yes she was just like that i cannot change
that i remember my love i swallow
my hands everyday taking the place of your hands on the table
the way i hold my hands
BY KEITH S. WILSON
I can’t imagine my father wishing he would rather be
anything. Once upon a time, he was a watermelon
growing from a box. His mother died. His father beat
the blood out of him, and teardrops dripped black
from his face into his food. My father’s father made him eat
his dinner through himself, the Miracle Whip salad spangled
like dew in the garden. This isn’t a figure of speech: my father ate
his blood. It’s hard to think he must have been young. He made me stop
all my life. He told me to not to be a girl. Whatever I was doing,
of course I stopped. He kissed me on the top of the head
before I went to bed each night. He was always there. He read
to my brother, he read to me from a book of animals. This is a fox’s paw.
This is a bear’s. He told me, I’ll give you something
to cry about. He never touched me. Bear claw, I said. Winters are easier
for bears. I spread my fingers over his. No, my father said.
