Floodgates (vingettes about water and death and my father)

etchings on the bedroom
window
beckon...

Lost voices in the moistened
air
my 8 year old fingers
traced their lips
hopeful smile
to eradicate
the evil
spirits
they slept
in my closet.

The moon behind the eyes
they were open.
someone to witness
me eaten whole.
my childhood soul
stolen
like eggs from a basket
like pie from a sill.

The moon would protect me
fell in love on an astral plane
wherein his face
always looking the same
vague; dreamy
like that old film
with the spaceship
lodged in his eye.
how I longed to be there
on air

my small hands
trembling, drawing
fine lines, learning
to work the moisture
into lines,
landscapes, waterfalls
dream villages in space
where I could soar away
from my father's voice
calling from the closet
"come soon, son."
and those red eyes
in the sooty inky void
my clothes, rock and roll
t-shirts and 501s
my dreams
but beyond the seams
black hands
always waiting
always wanting
always taunting me
from the
black space
unrecognizable face
will I see you when I sleep?
will you know the man I fought so hard to be?

Paige turned
old photos
burned
in the twilight
ash and sadness
of the past
evaporating
like liquid
glass.