Birds of Malaiseville

Feast of Cocked Hats. Holy Smell of Train Yard. Bread of Abandonment. Bread of Troubled Gums.

I closed my eyes like blind Isaac and patted my goaty cheeks. “Esau? Is it you, Esau?”

Of the underwear band with the inside-out dashes. Of the stress-fracture walking boot and the mother outside the classroom.

God held my father’s face in His hands. This was it. “Earvin?” He said. “Earvin asked.”

You and Jesus sit at a picnic bench, waiting for your name to be called: Gunther? James?

Neither married nor given in marriage. That’s rich, tell her, coming from the world’s most desirable bachelor.

Eternity lengthens by the infinite energy of imperfection. My father-in-law will work forever and be content with God.

Will they learn to clear tables? Be led expressionless by expressionless service dogs? Stare when a gift store visitor makes nervous conversation?

I’ve gone to church for 50 years and have liked it best only when it’s over.

Orange mercurochrome stains from skateboarding in culottes in those abandoned apartment complexes in Santa Clarita.

Sweet gum maples. Blossoms like muscadine grapes on the locust tree I planted in our backyard so she could see it from our kitchen.

The grackle is a walker. The robin too. Songbirds? Hoppers. Pheasants and partridge?

The Devil is no help to my marriage. He makes nicknames for the clothes my wife wears that he knows I don’t like.

It’s no relief to be done with physical beauty. Some men can let go. Certain others, you and I, never stop measuring.

The last days of Great Bent Arrow. Old, lost Charlie Hustle. Hair as white as cocaine.

“He’s taking what Mr. Trump is taking!” my mother-in-law told my wife. “Don’t even,” I said.

I began the eulogy with a literal truth: she was the tallest cousin in the family. Ended it with an apocryphal one.

Nothing much left to peck. Pelt. A saw-toothed spinal column. It’s a primitive heap. It looks like the invention of the bagpipe.

This long in heaven my grandfather sees limits to perfection. When the weather turns, his scars itch.

“Thank you, please, but no,” I say when offered the soup. Dead people can’t eat in dreams, so it seems best that I don’t either.

This is mostly how I remember the group and me in 1984: we talk about Jesus as brightly as we talk about Magnum P.I.