Kevin

by

Matthew Lee Bain

With measured, coordinated
Movements of tense, fumbling fingers
You showed me how to build

How the fat and skin
Fit the skeleton
Of wood – tissue-pink insulation

Stuffed between boards,
Drywall nailed, hung, wallpaper…
Remember the walking sticks everywhere?

The dirt-colored spiders in the crawl –
Space where we emboweled the house
With bronze guts?

With tobacco-stained, hirsute
Fingers, choppy directions
And a stuttering laugh, you

Showed me how to build;
But never the fire –
Secret art of your exodus…

In the wiring? Kerosene balloons
Hidden under wooden parings?
Or from your very fingers?

I don’t want the reasons
Or the eye from your socket –
I want: one last instruction…

Show me how to build
The house of fire.
I don’t want the reasons –

I have my own.

 

 

The Matthew Lee Bain ship is slowly but steadily approaching its thirty-second year at sail on this dreary and otherwise uncertain sea of life. Other than that, he writes fiction, studies literature, and practices Tae Kwon Do. His most recent poetry credits include: The Missing Fez, Penny Dreadful, Haz Mat Review, Children, Churches and Daddies, Pegasus and Scavenger's Newsletter. His most recent fiction credits include: Nocturnal Ooze, Happy, Reflection's Edge and TQR. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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