age of the forklift

it’s me, tom, talk
as fog not cheap & dead
that tree was a phone
cracked as winter’s up
a little girl’s eyes
          zooming
after fade of motor
cycle              makes you
wonder, says her mother
have good days, says the
baker, faded            have
good days           out the
door, down the street
i’m lost as that, good
as fog not eyes & bodies
yawn a school—
it’s me, tom, school
as fog not eyes & bodies
after fade of motor
again i get
beat up & move school
to school thru race
riot as if body were
speech—it is, & that was
the 90s, in shadow, much
as body’s a path from a bruise
like a trumpet—it’s been    it’s been
          this afterlife
we got hung up on
& sat outside to see
& couldn’t          you yawned
the hallway groaned the strings
are eyes shot out a trumpet
like care could
happen in a house that
counts for you—look at all these kids—
i give myself what they
gave me over & over—the institutions,
i mean & the kicks to the head
                  there’s my name
                  it’s a black hole
                  i shovel things in
an if notes       a blues in a crumb
clip       the money where your
home was            cement where
the mouth is          our violent need
to shovel out description
                              for the hum
                              under the ash