Boyo, you haven’t taken off your boots
in a week or brushed your teeth –
my son the Jack of Knives – you stutter Instagram
accounts of theft – how you cut blue
from black out of the night
and hid in the Dunkin Donuts until 3AM
when the police finally were gone,
the color drained from the face of the cashier
because he knew, he knew.
I heart you from safety
where I am not father to the chicken tenders
hardening under your bed –
can’t you manage *both* art and hygiene?
Do you have to put your camera
in my face, the shutter flicking open like the click
of a switchblade, mugging before the lens?
We scuffle about your overdrafts, my insistence
you return the stolen colors in your pocket.
For The Sunday Muse
