The Keepin of Records

i felt the morning flush of midnite rain the way august was in 56 or 7 when i returned from 4-h camp at alpine wyoming to find a houseful of our relatives for your funeral a hopeless congregation of a family gone bad at the root of charlie rob you spoke of navajo trading post in Arizona where we visited your leathery face petrified wood of curious trinkets made of silver and turquoise by the indians in your home after the war you were a licensed vender of goods for the indians and paid your special fees as i also pay my special fees for registrin and withdrawin and registrin at idaho state you are registerd these few years at mt mccaleb cemetry amongst the weeds and lilacs and no large tombstone your brother imitates your father & another family in the chain of broken marriage beds finds me the youngest grovelin to be free as you also tried to free yourself from the state hospital at blackfoot oh died you quietly and at peace with our paranoia the officials are all gone that were in charge when you stayed but a kind man showed me a card punched full of holes that assures me death was quiet for our sickness all the other rascal cousins have made off with your paintings and i have none of their brashness to console my head the mormon eruption has ill settled among these mountains and deserts. grama lies in a pink housecoat with one of the lenses shattered in her glasses reading with a great green ulcer on her leg and bad dreams of amputation oh will she die quiet with her head punched full of holes for reassurance you knelt on our sidewalk and begged me to come promisin to not hurt me and i ran afraid into the house we bug our neighbors and harm those we love how certainly we must die quietly mad our ship of decadence is full of provisions for the journey to where the memory of our happenstance is quiet and the record keepers are unwelcome