The body leaves as surely
as it arrived. And so the son has stopped
growing. He wears
his best clothes as substitute
for goodbye. Today his nails are longer.
He can’t breathe now. The sky is
a photograph to the absence of birds.
How stitches from organ removal
are places where the son has been erased.
His mouth and eyes are glued shut.
Candlelight swims the face.
The drip is steady. The way something
always goes wrong with the world.
Like a father with his head
in both hands. Or this darkness
where the rain always gets in.