CHILD OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Bryan Byrdlong

Already the spectacle … Bent light rivering through revealing my gender: Adorned / Adonai. No crown.

Hat stitched with sports, heads of rubber, pigskin wreathed in red. Brown eyes obscured with summer shades. Small temple to coolness.

My smile points to what might be revealed. Already, my mother looks for a universe in my mouth. Already, I will never best this performance of “Him”. What I can’t help but seem spills out peek-a-boo, shines through darkly … God … the man who thinks he’s my father is trying so goddamn hard. His pointer finger fidget

-ing at the frame’s edge. He’s feening for a fix, hand still sore from deployment, feuds in far off lands. He’s fixated on the spectacle he still believes is his son, trying so much to take it all in, mom and me in matching black and yellow family reunion t-shirts Looking from this angle he’s already removed himself from the picture, trying to see himself into my likeness. The background of amber pine needles, brown and aureate wife, a crib too cramped to live in Such desire. Such destiny which I bewilder with my own witness … Who knows what I’ve seen?

Small horrors. Wonders … I am still like an infant. When I speak, no one understands … Take the tree graphic on my shirt it’s leaves dyed, same yellow as the rest of the fabric In the brief moment I see it, every tree in the world is gold.