LIneage of Mirrors | Christopher J. Greggs

losing the house

I

the bank eats my home. has my mother’s credit for breakfast. a cracked egg in my chest. an open castle. open casket.

i am my mother on the wall. a ghost as secret. a ghost as wish.

i reach. her waist a burning knob. the sun cuts loud against her dress. my nose bloody with pink snot.

i am 12 years old. a fetus aged enough to know sound. to know a house that doesn’t change is a dead house.

outside the wind is out of character. there is red like apple between my teeth. red like deer grazing rocks.

i am a grammar of bones. my blood runs wet. i am a handsome bleed. my nose a rain gutter.

this is my home. it is not an answer. i know what it costs. how we all need somewhere to leave.

II

i choose a forgetting that has a punch line. a forgetting that has a playlist. has a foul line. No. i choose a forgetting that forgets
forgiveness. Takes my money & vends nothing. if heaven a dollar. every shadow a cavity in light. a miracle in a wrinkled shirt
lifting my wallet. & here my demons their demands. benefits & remote work. my mother has stopped working. bleeds money.
& i rush my nose to her bleeding hands she wiping my face with her last dollar. our bodies share the gash. blood hiding in blood.

II

down the block a butterfly half caked
in concrete its open half flaps
against the wind my mother’s car
passing us both i mask my hands with my hands
imagine the insect in a world half free
the breeze split with wet rock
i choose to grieve ten years later
the sun dry snitching my shatter
across the lawn my body flattened
on the asphalt shadow bent upward
into the branches of a birch’s canopy
the birds disturbed by the wind I bring
my arms banking my nose wet with the water that comes
the dried salt at my lips a ghost as home cooked meal
the breeze a wiping hand at my eyes
& look here wet cement to crawl through
a road to comb my hair

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