How many canes can one observe without finally exploding?

He walks with a cane and smells like a mouse.

He has food caked on his sleeves.

There are stains on his cuffs. He smells of urine and old socks.

His wife attacks him; she berates him.

The old man will die of emphysema.

My mother promised to leave. “Why would you go to his funeral?”

She didn’t want a priest or a minister, she wanted show girls and fireworks.

She wanted to humiliate him. She ended up disgracing herself.

She’s glad he’s dead. Glad he’s gone. “Hallelujah.”

He begs not be resuscitated, but she forgets.

He wants to die in peace, why not?

She is asked but is silent. The paramedics smash out his teeth

and jam a pipe down his throat. He lives for days.

He keeps a lock on the door of the den. He runs in there…

I want the version of you still unguarded, before life ripped in with its clenched fists and jaw unhinged, before it bit in trying to lick new wounds from the other side of your innocence, flipped over and planted dirty.

Show me your eyes before the burial that choked your throat with seeds you never knew could grow on the soft part of your voice like a whisper blooming into a scream you hoped would die in the casket with you.

Stand up and step out of the skin that grew filthy from the war brought to your face by an enemy you had no choice but to welcome because the blood runs thick to thin sometimes until it empties clear when the battle is over.

Resurrect your own name as though you are digging up your truth before you became a story told by someone with blood on their…