I starred in the war but I’ll never finish it. An indigo dog could bark, a car could fly,

and the video would play on. My head is a beloved VCR

in the unfinished basement of August, the wheels moving and begging

to be cooled, soothed without vice, but this house is a tape and the tape is

a movie about war. Family and soundtrack merge, the original cut with the cure.

Voices compete with footfalls above, doors swelling in their

tired frames, but you’ll find me at the bottom of the stairs, still twisting in

a bedsheet on the ground, a Jesus of idle sweat. I’m dreaming of AC. I’m crossing

the no man’s land; the trenches call. I’m leveraging the loam, as if

we could do nothing more beautiful than cease, safe and deep, glowing

just like the TV taught me to.