Pinkly child turned upon me                  sack of potatoes little
sack of potatoes        Stinkbug clutch the screen                     upon me
No bones little           sack of potatoes    Pinkly child
turned to clutch me

                                               You'd be 7                   had I not left you
                                               no bones little             sack of potatoes

pinkly jellyfish move like breathing in the tiny screen            in the seething sea, Neruda's sea,
or missing sea within me
                                                                           the scene at night in which I kick
my brother's heart turn heel & scatter              clutch knees to chest
behind childhood's door with Rage, another word for the fear of killing him, or             him
                                                                                                                                                       killing
                                                                                                                                                       me

                                                                                                              how once his young fist slammed
                                                                                                                                              the wall beside my head
                                                                                                                      a dent in the dead rose colored paint
                                                                                                            how my father struck him, once.
                                                                                                            how they sucked a life out of me, how
                                                                                                            after, children lingered to me, clutched
                                                                                                       my wrong hand
                                                                                                                                    in parks
                                                                                                                   in parks & bodegas.

a fat fly on the wall in the morning's unmade bed
my pills plastic with patience.

             (Stinkbug says, So? Moves slowly.)

a dismantled razor, a long-sleeved life in boxes

                                                                                          sack of potatoes little
                                                                                          no bones sack of potatoes

__

Another title for this poem is "Fragment __ from The Archive of Mourning." The Archive of Mourning is a building similar to the central registry that appears in Jose Saramago's All The Names, except that the archive sits abandoned in the aftermath of a hurricane, its facade torn away, the remaining records partially destroyed by rainwater.