The arcade I lived in was the cryptograph, more or less. / The dog named Mila demanded evidence of the crowd. / You rented a room in the hotel by the sea.

Frayed hymn, but faded. Unsown / threads turned toothy-tough — a gift / of wild roadside seedheads gone / gunmetal with dirt-freckled rain.

But in another language, in my father’s mouth, there is a tenderness to the tone he takes, so that the word beat overlaps with other words, some of them meaning I miss you. He says beat as if the word shares a border with laughter. As if it is just a lost synonym for love.

In Iraq I said that word so much, heard it so often. I came home and found myself still saying it. Shrapnel's shell was first used against the Dutch at Surinam (now Guyana). The Dutch were so taken aback by the weapon that they surrendered after only the second time it was fired.

The arcade I lived in was the cryptograph, more or less. / The dog named Mila demanded evidence of the crowd. / You rented a room in the hotel by the sea.

Budapest Pale, blonde phantom / In sleeping gown, I am Barefoot at the precipice, / A cloud of invisible Long-haired, white rabbits / Leashed, to me. I am drowning...

Your husband watches like a phantom through the window, his face silvered in smoke. His eyes, once brimming with affection, have slanted into whispers. You want his puckered face to catch a clod of dirt.

But in another language, in my father’s mouth, there is a tenderness to the tone he takes, so that the word beat overlaps with other words, some of them meaning I miss you. He says beat as if the word shares a border with laughter. As if it is just a lost synonym for love.

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