Decryption

All these years and still you

couldn't make me. Can't make me call this man Uncle.

Ever since he touched—Here, there, here.

Girl in short bangs, inverted bowl of hair.

I no longer sucked my thumb but I was very young.

Knife in the maw of a pain dumb now but still blunt.

Moods come over me. I think them unrelated, until

outrage raps on the door. No one knew what to make of it.

Quit before the toxic kingdom settles, I tell myself.

Supper molders on the table while I compose documents

under internal dictation. Why not now, rather than never?

Why rewind the spool to that part where it snags?

You've yanked it back; and each time string a new-old bead:

Zamaro, zambombo, grosero. Sinvergüenza. Antipático.

X-Acto knife blades layer silhouettes. Edge to edge,

vivid outlines thicken the image, buff dry some of the fury.

Thanks to our theory of production, some 18,000+ days have now

rolled off the factory machine since that unwelcome insinuation—

Please note: this is not proof that nothing ever happened.

Neon is to vacation as medieval tapestry is to confession.

Locate the lion, the unicorn; the bird, the cage, the ferret.

Justice is a shorthand that takes the longest, longest time.

Heresy has the same number of syllables as honesty.

For my sake, I walk through every room at night, testing

doorknobs, light switches, typewriter keys. No apology has come.

By what right should bitter roots be made to compost in honey?

Source: Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Southern Illinois University Press, 2020)