Cut into five parts

1.

Sunday night. 

Blood bubbled along the length of his arm. Nerves and muscles bulged from his shredded skin. Tightness bound his abdomen, like a cry held captive, suffocating him. He let out a wild roar, but the odor of his pending death nauseated him, stunning him. But like smelling salts, a decaying green puss seeped out of his body and shocked him back to consciousness, but he had lost his sight from the shock. More pain shot through his body. He grabbed his arm, and it felt loose, unattached. He began to pat down thousands of cuts, swatting them like flies, flinching with every brush against an open wound. “Help,” he shouted, not making a sound. Twice. Three times.

He heard a rustle. He couldn’t see anymore, and the sound only lasted an instant. But he turned in the correct direction. He held his breath and stopped moving. He was left with only one sensation, a smell, a pleasant odor, distinct from the rest — that of a woman.

“Help,” he whispered. “ I know you’re there. Surely you care. There’s no way, in a place that reeks of such death, that a smell so pretty could hide. You’re my only hope.”

I Can’t Be a Father to Every Child

The screen flickers. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Hiding under a rotted, sunken bridge, a barren monument in a dry, flat, dirt-brown countryside, I can barely keep my eyes open. I see children wading or floating in pools of blood. All of them, murdered. Not a single survivor. I see the beasts growling and kicking up dust, a cloud of dust that accumulates like a darkly-somber light cast upon a fine transparent glass. The screen flickers. I try to close my eyes, but I can’t.

I see bruised women scurry around like lizards trapped in a burning glass cage, men fused against the glass bleeding tears and alcohol through every pore. I wait for the ceremony to begin. I want to see them hold up the fractured remains of their children and toss them away into oblivion. Children fractured but whole, elegantly stitched and wrapped in knotted twigs; their sweet, sweet faces framed by fine twine, their corpses preserved like dead gods; their mortal flesh submerged in the rancid pigments of dried rotted orange rind.

I drop, drop off, sink into soft bedding.

a baseball kind of hero

He was a boy, a baby really, not more than a few months old, still in diapers, a pacifier dangling from his mouth.

She was wearing a baseball cap that collected a bundle of blond curls with some red highlights.

He stood at the plate, legs apart and knees slightly bent, his bare toes sinking into the drenched dirt.

The rain fell in puddles. There were no more boys left in the field, just her, in the center of the mound, ready to sink to the bottom of a river to throw him another ball. Sweat and dirt on the girl’s knuckles ate away at the beaten leather of the baseball. The ball, drenched to its core, heat-dried at the girl’s touch. Fired up but bathed in the pouring rain, her bare toes tore away at the earth beneath.

The boy, poised on his tiptoes, balanced a very large wooden bat.

A Photo, Just Six Hours Born

Oct 25, 2010

(warm tones, her mother)

She

(melts into her mother’s wet skin)

She

(takes a single breath, then, breathes)

She

(in the profound softness of her mother, curls up)

She

(blinks an eye)

She

(opens her lips with her small finger)

Suckles.

Born, Miles

Jan 18, 2010

He was born. We traveled far. Cabs, ambulances. She worked hard, suffered. I stayed with her, held her hand, spoke to her. She listened, focused. We made it. I love her. She put her life into him. Mine also. I love him. He soaks up our love, our caresses, our gaze. His eyes can open and he cries like a mouse.

He was born 2 months early but we were ready. She woke me and told me her water broke. The bed and she were wet. I called the ambulance as she put on my robe, my socks, and her sneakers. She waited at the door, patiently, while I grabbed our suitcases already packed and ran around for 15 minutes grabbing more than we needed until we were taken to the hospital.

The day had not begun, the middle of the night set the correct tone: Quietness, a baby soon to be, another life – his, ours – to begin.

I now look at him and I love him and I love her and I love myself. I am thrilled. Daddy is ready.