going back

sip a cup of tea
and let butter burn
across bites of bread
and plant memories like
wedges into the earths past

going back
is always a downhill slide
driving deeper and deeper into
memory until clouds
become black phrases; a hum
home without a floors or heat
spread mouth nights
spent asleep
warmed by newspapers and vicks
on your chest

goin back
is like fear and reason collapsing
into one, though you scour
to find memory
memory can be as painful
as the thought forgotten
yet how can one
forget images, chickens and ducks
across wire pens
and the smell of shit
like moist green ammonia
while granma screams at cousins
in four letter sequence
thongs grayng feet
a charcoal white
hands fluttering plump
around chicken neck
plucking feather by feather

goin back became
presexual loves
me and my don q calls to women
burning into records
that really weren't hip
but made believe were
and i was the good son
with a glowing
ember of a head
asleep coca cola drunk
while tios and tias passed
around beers and meat
among shouts of conversations

goin back
meant cousins of love
letting me know
i was somebody
for how i did it
and taking my hand
while we played together &
we could fall asleep together
on the bed we shared
with knees crying to be washed

like i said going back was like a slide
     perhaps controlled
     perhaps not
     'cause you never knew how deep
     the hole was at the bottom