the scream

you see it on the film
how the bullet hits the skull

how the skull explodes
and the flowers scream

the future
suddenly without shape

the baby born without arms

and will you
sing it a lullaby?

will you help dig in the scrubland
beyond the interstate?

the bodies could be anywhere
and the father isn't talking

the soil is poisoned and
the mother's body washes ashore

and it has no head and
the fetus is gone
and then the doctor says she'd
like to run some tests

says cancer is something
she dreams about

vultures digging at the
eyes of starving children

a television left on in an empty room

not my father
but my father's ghost

not his anger
but his sense of despair

the two of us sitting in a bar at
nine o'clock on
a sunday morning

an assassination on the television
or the sound of angry silence

the fact that we have
nothing left to give each other

that i'm tired of choking on ashes

am tired of answering phones
in dark rooms

of driving to hospitals and
walking down sterile hallways
and when she asks what i've brought
i hold out my empty hands and
it's never enough

when we fall from the couch
to the floor
i can almost forget my anger

can almost see myself
pulling the trigger

my hands on fire and
dreaming only of your flesh