The Cure for Headaches
Someday I'll be a postman!
brother says as he runs
to collect the mail.
Under his fingernails soil blooms
into handwashing.
Mother is a nap
taking a migraine
in quiet as slippery
as the pages of a Sears catalog,
the beige exclamations
of underwear models' nipples,
coils of glossy garden hoses and drawers
of silverware turning
on infinity.
Outside five seagulls shit
in the grass and fly west
to hunt beach scraps.
We ride our island
of lawn and bee stings,
the last field in Orange County.
He is an elf in our uncle's baseball cap,
loving his stuffed bears secretly,
loving Cheerios for dinner.
It's getting dark he says. It’s my turn
to light the windows.
Posted 07/21/10
This poem originally appeared in Crab Creek Review