my desert hands

(2021 version)

My desert hands held not dessert

but what cooks dinner, grease; boiled, combusted, sloshed, spilled,

Fire stares at me from the wall

Like a portrait

or a mirror

Fire drips from the ceiling

Flame on!

Panic Blisters.

Two torches held before me

distracted by a rare decent call

with a relative lost in the suburbs

when I reenter the kitchen

the flip-phone tumbles from

My desert hands

two torches held before me.

I cut them off

Boxing gloves

a dishwasher by trade

A bad chef was my aim

Two torches held before me

Synecdoche

We freezers surrounded by flames.

“It must’ve been Hell,” my Army father who had seen Balkan genocide later said looking at the unveiling of

my desert hands colonized displaced thigh patchwork stapled by metal metal metal. Parts of me here parts of me there parts of me gone parts of me replaced with other parts of me

A stranger prayed at my feet where the liquid opiates slithered into my veins and

I didn’t want any more

And when the lucid dreams began

This is real, I thought, as the soothing dragon rolled up my body. I can deal with this. This is no emotional blockage, this is no discrepancy. This is reality. This is physical pain. Plus a semester off. I never know where to sit anyway.

This, I know how to heal

My college girlfriend, the photographer who never took my picture, rode in the ambulance

she would later sketch my desert hands in charcoal, the irony of her artistic choices lost on me

She did not leave my side

For a bit

in the kitchen a phone forever frozen mid-drop

My father did not blow up in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, are you sensing a trend?

I never know and now he has diabetes and who do I love, where do I bury him, no no no, my desert hands, my desert hands.

A bad chef, that’s me

Two torches held before me

I’m sorry Lord

too late for that

I did not die.

What to pray for while waiting back there and I know I will not die. My desert hands curled attached fetuses, what if they just fell off here on this grassy knoll while I wait for boxy trucks to rescue me and hose my kitchen? Watch them tumble away.

I am here and there, parts of me here and parts of me there

I forgot to remind myself I am not there anymore

Why do I keep going back for seconds

Eat shit and die, I do not know why that comes to mind. I just wanted some French Fries, extra crispy. I did not remove the skin. I blanched them. Is that so bad Lord? Does my diet displease you, Lord? Are my cooking methods blasphemous? Are my condiments cringey? Bless this ketchup. Why am I talking to you Lord? I don’t believe in you Lord. Educated people aren’t supposed to Lord, aren’t supposed to wither their own hands here on this grassy knoll on E Chestnut St between a big brick apartment building and a big brick Lutheran Church,

Why Lord can one not see through the windows of churches and strip clubs?

It was the most profound thought of my life.

Oh, they are stained, my Lord. Like my desert hands now, the windows are stained.

This is not the penultimate event of my life. Nor was it.

I still wait on a grassy knoll for sirens and lights to bathe me, to convey my spirit, for my college girlfriend to come home, for my mother to hang up, for my father

I hope the cats are not on fire, writhing fur balls clawing organs shifting. When you’re on fire the parts do not want to equal one, a greater whole, they realize their individuality and dodge run jump evade the burning close sensation. They lose all cohesive semblance, the atoms split, unpatriotic bastards, you are a part of me, why won’t you listen!