Refugee Bandit Birthday Rag

You, I mean whoever’s right here
between the atoms, loosed from these hinges
and tubes, you whose shimmers I inhale
and let myself listen for in the silver
hubbub of the air, you who’ve gone ahead,
disappeared and infiltrated my breaths,
you who in your lives twisted and blessed me
with your worried Scotch Tape love,
you who haven’t left yet, who can’t hide
anywhere near as well as when I saw you
plain in the light, I know you’re not asking
but I am decided, I’m living
on our behalf now, what’s mine is not
much joy unless, ours is this moment’s
sweet misdemeanor, my boy plunking
the keys all country and singing real high
in the dining room while in the kitchen Alina
fakes ballet, the steam from the plug-in
kettle hisses like a truck stop and didn’t we
see winter end with the first skunk cabbage
on our wander through the ravine, didn’t we
feel Heaven prickle our necks in the drizzle
that turned us around, didn’t we steal
the light like a shirt off the back of the world,
like a lost holy scroll and haul it
in our invisible big-finned getaway
Plymouth Sport Fury and unroll it here
on the living-room floor like a golden supersize
Marvel edition and plunge right in
since it is of course our story, today,
on this old man’s birthday, god bless you
for coming Mom, Dad, Grampop, Grammom,  
Aunt Dorothy, Uncle Herbie, the whole
twitchy gang, blame-ray-guns blazing
on another great heist, we refugee bandits
no plague no war no cirrhosis of the liver
no killer-high blood pressure no glioblastoma
can ever lock up in the dark. 

“Refugee Bandit Birthday Rag” first appeared in RHINO.

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