At the Park on the Edge of the Country

Friday, July 15, 2022

If you’re wearing a tee we would call vintage nowadays
perhaps with a pop star or soda brand brandished
across the chest, waiting with your brother-in-law

for your brother at a bench in the park in which
you two will sleep, huddling together for warmth
and to shoo away thoughts of permanent disappearance,

you must be my father in Ciudad Acuña in 1991.
When the police shake you two awake, you will still
be the teen boy wondering which direction to sprint

from fire. And where to place your hands when speaking
to someone with a gun. And how to come back for more.

If you dreamt of Kerrville, Texas, get another dream.
If you didn’t dream at all, you’ve got a call to make.

Friday, July 15, 2022