“Arsenic, the cure for sleeping sickness,” 7/15 from 21st Century Retablo. 11.7″ x 16,” mixed-media on archival paper, 2005-06. Permanent collection, USC Fisher Museum of Art.

POEM: arsenic, the cure for sleeping sickness

our amaranthine boy is the son of action    as he descends/
even deeper into the well     he stores his feelings in a secret/
little pocket     he is tired of all the questions     “if you live/
win two tickets to the Super Bowl”     consequences gather/

at the rim – he is taking it very literally to watch over me –/
immortality pulls him     toward the unknown     the man/
of the house, he is measured by what can’t be seen     dark/
matter surrounds     and all that is down there     disappears/

behind a scattered shower     he accepts the metallic/
past of his dead father     valor, sacrifice, breed on the ground/
of the Rose Garden     wounds open on his little fingers/
not even nuclear forces can resist     the sacrifice of a soldier/

turns a boy into a man     measured through nonsense/
wounds, to “preserve daily life”     the boy falls,/
he has no direction     the perfect example of expeditionary/
this war for the future will be fought by hand-/

knives     kinetic, maddening, it’s time to stop/
blowing things up     with this sense of failure, he feels/
outgunned      there is only one way     down below,/
a warrior’s country club     the battle for  heart/

and blind    this is what it means to be hit     in this/
aphotic hollow nest, surrounded by ghosts of the voiceless/
prophecy    “our soporific boy, how will you sleep?/
there is no cure for destiny!”