We Inherit What the Fires Left Read online

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  Dedicated to Beverly and Linda and Langston and William. Who sacrificed so much to make their granddaughter possible.

  Storytelling is a form of tribal propaganda

  —Will Storr

  GRASS GROWING WILD BENEATH US

  THE ENGINE

  The sun fell out of the window,

  our daughter caught it with her teeth.

  Every nightfall

  is a black they can’t murder.

  The days my car makes it

  to the garage are the days I can live forever.

  Even flattened against the street, an officer’s

  knee in my back, I look young for my age.

  They say you can chart time by stargazing or

  knowing all the stars you see are already dead.

  If the tops of trees are the newest life, everything

  from my father’s land looks like the future.

  When I retrieve the mail, I am reminded

  of what can outlive me.

  When I was a boy, we gathered

  sticks that resembled bones.

  We tried to resurrect our ancestors, but they refused.

  We have given you death once, why would you give

  that back?

  I had a cut above my eye once

  and assumed everything I saw was bleeding.

  The ground is better at giving us names

  than the sky has ever been.

  THE TRAIL SAYS THREE POINT ONE MILES

  We know how old we are by remembering

  our company while   we walked this trail

  the beginning when there were less

  of us   jogging and counting the miles

  sweaty and owning our breath   we drove

  to your condo which was still our   home

  and showered for a long spell

  picking the   wild from each other   then

  when we were      pregnant and you refused

  to not finish the trail   I was so cautious then

  you      would probably never succumb to anything

  but I was      brutish and remembered

  this wasn’t your first pregnancy

  only the one that had lasted   this long

  later   we brought the stroller because

  she loved the buzzing air too   sometimes

  she would run along with you like a second hand

  catching up to the hour       sometimes

  she stayed in the stroller   while I pushed

  her up each hill      once we saw   a deer

  slowly venturing through the thick

  head high as a lighthouse   the brush parting

  like a royal court    the girl sat upon

  my shoulders saying   daddy daddy

  daddy   until the other deer   emerged

  and there was nothing left

  to say   we had been here before   all

  of us   with the grass growing wild

  beneath us

  INTERROGATION

  The morning has rhythm—

  wake her up, get dressed, eat

  breakfast, brush teeth,

  shoes on, then the door. It is

  true, even if it is still a sprint.

  Not every morning is made from

  God, so it is left to me to improvise

  upon the machine. Bring

  the clothes downstairs, eat in the car

  or be ready to pack everything

  you can. She is fully dressed,

  hoping the morning

  will make me forget that she

  needs to brush her teeth. It does

  not. I can’t brush my teeth if

  I already have my shoes on.

  She knows this is not

  how logic moves around us,

  and yet she tries. Not all

  gulfs will be this easy to bridge.

  She calls the baseball a football

  and I correct her. She says

  her grandparents are in heaven

  now and I say close enough. I never

  know what windows are worth

  destroying. She knows that I am Santa.

  I have driven into the night and returned

  with ice cream at her request then

  betrayed her by smiling about it. Lost

  a game of Connect Four twice. Pretended

  to not see her hiding behind the couch.

  Told her why she will never have

  a brother. Once we roamed around

  the woods and watched a deer

  beautiful and liquid move among

  the tall grass. The girl’s eyes widened

  until light came from them. She whispered

  even though the deer knew we were

  there. Daddy, it’s so cool, she would say.

  And I was silent. Smiling, I thought,

  Did you know some people shoot them?

  SOFT PRAYER FOR THE TEETHING

  Be it the miracle wounding.

  Be it the tearing of one’s own

  body to allow invasion. Be it

  the song that won’t be suppressed.

  The courtship that only happens

  at nightfall. The flattering

  that happens from outside

  the window, but must shatter

  the window to be heard. Be it

  the ceremony of ache, the feigned

  consent. The world opening

  inside of a mouth. May these gods

  enter and never leave. May they

  never be betrayed by a car crash

  or unloved lover. May the pain be

  a gate broken once and mended again

  and again and

  LITTLE LIE

  Close to her school the lights of the ambulance

  splay across the interior of the car. I see

  the new shades of my daughter recycle

  across her opened face. There is a car in front

  of the ambulance, nothing we can see wrong

  with it except for the not moving. It is angled in

  the turning lane like an invasive sunray into a quiet

  room, a thorn among stalks. The bicycle lies

  much farther away, the front wheel contorted

  around the wooden pole emerging from the concrete.

  The back wheel is gone, as if slid in some

  mischief’s pocket. Chain loose and resting

  on the sidewalk. There are no people among

  the macabre, unless you count the ghosts. My daughter

  asks what happened and I lie the little lie.

  I don’t know what happened, love.

  I say it again and again like a chant

  or a wish or something to fill the air

  until the lights light up someone else’s sky

  and can do nothing more than chase us.

  MIMIC

  Copycat: Mimic:

  the little girl knows this game

  now, repeating everything said in front

  of her, bubble, giggle between

  each failed   attemp
t. Tortured

  her friends all day and now starts

  in on her mother.

  Put your shoes away

  your shoes away.

  What do you want to

  what do you want

  eat

  eat.

  When she begins to place

  my words in her mouth

  the jump is not far for her—

  she is already my mimic after all,

  having taken my nose

  and eyes and smile for her   own.

  Ok: Ok:

  Stop: Stop   Now: Now

  My words are the least of her talent,

  though she looks like me in absolute

  silence, arms tied like a bow across

  the whole of me/her until I solve

  the riddle with silliness as I begin

  tickling her   until she can’t take

  it, thrashing       on our floor

  Daddy: Daddy

  Stop: Stop   Not: Not

  Fair: Fair

  You’re: You’re    Cheating: Cheating

  I don’t apologize for breaking the rules

  between my fingers   as I’ve broken

  things not as easily forgivable between

  them before    and it’s this I want

  to blanket before my mimic picks

  up on it, before she takes away another part

  I’m not ready to laugh away.

  BECAUSE I WAS ONCE GOOD

  I know how difficult baseball is and because she is

  good at most things, I know how my daughter reacts

  when she fails at something. It’s baseball today,

  yesterday was archery with a plastic weapon,

  and every day is handstand day. The red bat slung

  across her shoulder like she has been here before,

  I warn how hard it is to hit a ball moving

  at you, I try to prepare the ground beneath her

  new gravity, admittedly more for my sake

  than hers. She hits the first ball, then the second,

  only missing on my too-low toss, every contact

  brings a levitation of triumph: I hit it again, Daddy.

  I too am caught in this firework, the uncanny

  learning of ascension, and ask, Do you want to play

  softball, love? and she says, Um, not really,

  as she connects again, the ball sailing out of view.

  ON THE FIRST SNOWFALL

  my daughter begged me to play outside

  so we wrapped ourselves in every shield

  we could find. I try to tell her about the frostbite

  that took her great-grandfather’s fingers and made

  him left-handed, but she never met him, so she

  looks at me like, Whatever. In the snow for twenty

  minutes, which might as well be generations, and

  when I tell her we’ve lost enough heat to never truly

  be the same, she dunks her face into the only

  untrampled patch of yard we have left and comes up

  for air, a fallen night’s worth of frost on her face.

  Doesn’t my beard make me older? Of course

  she doesn’t look older, but she does look less mine

  than she did a moment ago and since this is what

  getting older means, I say, Yes, love, before

  I disappoint her or she disappears into the wind or

  until the snow lingers so long, I can no longer tell

  the seasons by what collects beneath us.

  INHERITANCE

  Every year we freeze

  our asses off to buy

  a fresh Christmas

  tree. My wife asks

  patiently why we

  continue this practice:

  a metal tree makes

  more sense, probably

  better for the earth,

  probably better on

  our backs, budget,

  but my pops always

  wanted fresh trees

  even when he didn’t

  have a family to gather

  around it, even when

  Christmas became

  another cold day

  interrupting the week.

  If I’m honest, I don’t know

  what idols to keep

  and what blood oaths

  to break—I don’t love

  anything enough

  to forget its birth.

  I don’t hold any sin

  separate from

  the father. I take

  all the history

  into my mouth

  and swallow

  without tasting.

  I pull a tree

  through the house,

  its needles tracked

  through the kitchen,

  the living room,

  the mess stuck

  to the bottom

  of shoes and coats,

  place the monument

  in the middle of us—

  even if for a short

  time, even if I am

  the only one who

  will water it.

  GOOD STORM

  A good thunderstorm

  can still knock some sense

  into the night, still pull

  the wind from dreams

  you didn’t plan on re-

  living, still send a child

  from her bed as if it

  were a hum

  under her skin, still carve

  enough space between

  her mother and I to make

  a house a home, still

  find a lake of ageless

  water under our covers

  where she is still the age

  she first found this quiet,

  and aren’t we just waiting

  on the sun to summon

  the next shift or thunder

  to stop? Whichever

  sacrifice comes first.

  JORDANS

  Copped the new

  Jordans today hadn’t

  planned on any excess

  hadn’t planned on being

  this type of capitalist

  even if I was trying to please

  my growing child trying to find

  some shoes she will age

  out of before the year lays

  itself to rest the two-hundred-

  dollar tag on the Jordans

  is not what I need not what

  this responsible family man

  budgeted for and I don’t

  really have it but I woke up

  as black as my own bed

  so maybe I do

  have it maybe I want

  for nothing until I cross

  the street or I drive my car

  faster than I should every alley

  can be a speed trap

  and becoming nothing

  is a very real possibility

  and maybe I don’t care what

  I can afford when I’m just hoping

  to be here

  when the package arrives

  HAUNT

  After watching too much TV, the little girl

  is convinced the house is haunted, every

  creaking step or a door finally loosening

  its metal clasp to give way to light, it

  keeps hidden on the other side a new

  specter with a new name. We have a family

  of them now, which used to scare her,

  but now only amuses her. Made-up stories

  about who died first and who must be

  fighting depending on what noises

  crescendo before bedtime. And this is cute,

  I guess, as she says bye to them as we

  leave for school in the morning and I

  arrive at work later, making enough noise

  to barely be noticed and my colleagues often

  speak about me as if I were c
onjured.

  IN THE EVENT THEY FIND ME FLOATING

  There is never a time when my daughter

  doesn’t overfeed the fish. I say, Just a pinch,

  love, and her small fingers always squeeze more

  than necessary. The flakes cover the surface

  like an oil slick. I try my best to warn her

  about the dangers of too much, I warn her

  that this is one of the ways we can hurt the fish.

  She does not know that I do not know how

  to tell if a fish is in pain. I only know how to kill

  one. I wish I knew more about what can bend,

  I wish I knew how to slow blood without halting.

  I never wanted to be God, but I don’t know

  what else to call that hunger. At dinner,

  my daughter moves her food around until

  they are countries. I have slightly burnt the chicken

  nuggets, so she has relocated them.

  For the potatoes I did better. They are eaten

  first and then everything and then

  there is nothing except what used to be. I try

  to remind her to feed the fish when we are eating or

  else I’ll forget. The fish will starve,

  hurting for a while, maybe. I wouldn’t know

  until I could no longer do anything about it.

  My daughter has named the fish—Starry, Beta

  & Goldie, though two of them are golden.

  She says she can tell who is who, but I don’t

  know that I believe her. Tonight, I don’t

  remember if they have been fed. I choose

  not to feed them, which I claim as the choice

  to not overfeed them. And maybe they have

  gone hungry and hungrier still, until they have

  become ravenous with want, until the morning

  comes and I choose an end to their suffering

  if suffering is still an option by then.

  WAVES

  At the beach where the Atlantic

  kisses our feet, my daughter

  asks me what the ocean will

  bring to shore, like it has

  secrets it holds on to. I say

  under my breath, Probably slaves,

  and I know this is me at my

  most cynical, a trait my child

  shouldn’t need to be helped with.

  I bury my tongue behind my teeth

  like so many shells before

  me and remember what lessons