for Philip
She is unnerved, anxious
at the state of the world,
but he insists that she uncoil.
The fluorescent light overhead
leaves her stretched bare,
vaguely ashamed of the ease
with which she’s been translated.
In her language, exclamations
are held in the mouth
until they are too weak to escape.
They are both the children
of their absent fathers. His dad
was a sleek guitar neck,
hers a gritty dollop of Delta
cocky behind the steering of a car
propped up on northern wheels.
Their fathers are the dead
puppeteers who push them
toward one another
then pull them apart,
who jerk tangled strings
and teach them the blues out loud.
It will be hard to recall a time
when they were exactly
poised to become all of it
in spite of themselves.
His singing burns
like the blue sun
inked on his forearm.
She fully intends one word
to turn the earth’s heart.
Such merriment
as the fathers watch their children.
They’re those cackling, unruly ghosts
taking up no space at all in the third row,
the ones who tipped in
when the room’s back was turned.
Guffawing until Camel spittle
and penny whiskey
spew from their grins,
they bob bony noggins
to the blue grind
and sing along.
They love that their offspring
waste their time so valiantly,
shapeshifting,
offering their verse and voltage
to crowds of solemn drunks,
hanging for all they’re worth
to one cracking point of a star.