To think of surgical gallows
Through broken garden paths
Like a stubborn tulip
Who loved the moon instead
Frayed, I go and leap
Through noxious sewer-creeks
“Plop!” go the stepping-stones
As my father did before
Sprint past the torn meadow
Through fallen trunks and shoots
And fading past
The hymns he used to sing
The only thing left is the ocean
From between two great stones
Like the cavernous mouth
Of some foul tidal lord of old
The bitter wind rushes through
Salty and lame
Beating against a son
On the gallows’ list
Do I not dream of
A naked child-god who
Years ago
Carved his initials on his father’s desk?
in parentheses 