A son doesn’t love what he’s supposed to love,
so what’s left to abandon? I have abandoned you,
failed forest, I say to the jade plant. A cube of milk
defrosts on the counter and daylight floods the room.
On my left the shine of antlers, on my right
the ghost of a brother. There is an animal
I could be, snarling outside in the snow –
it only wants to be touched, let inside and loved
like any vanishing thing. These nights, with my face
in soil, I hear crickets cry for another finger.
You obey so easily. To become balm
like buzzards over filth. To pick clean another form
of family, hold a knife to something wilder
no longer yourself. A fraction of a son
is still someone’s son, dividing into a cruel logic:
you cannot cut out the gash you left in your mother
and throw it to the wind without leaving
a larger one in its place. By now the animal outside
has gone quiet, and flies are bloating
in breastbone. Will only those who devour
be given wings? I tear leaves from the jade plant.