Portrait of Kratos Tendering the Wounds of His Child
boy—you god
into the deepest Black; stitches
seal your sacrosanct potential
in place, no matter how much trauma.
Your loves come together into tattoos marking
the ways they’ve hurt & held you (a gentle
violence every time). I have much I need you
to learn, and not enough time to be soft
while holding you tight. I may hurt you
but remember I have no language to say
I love you. I’ll be long gone before you know
this to be a truth. O how I keep
getting things wrong, thinking I can shout
you into a better man, as a lineage of fathers—
like shadows—once asked of me with silence. My brutal love
is all, a quiet meadow of violet promise. I’m so scared
as I watch the world dare you to live. I’m forever bound to you
& I don’t need to know the person you’ve become. Our sacred heritage
scars your back, an obsidian target—a blessing
everyone wants to kill. I can’t apologize more
for the beauty I’ve caused you—the slick bend
of bowstring in your arms, your arrow tongue quick & shape-
less, letting you slip between boy & some ancient
wild I wouldn’t dare name. You are too much
for all the names you’ve grown to live inside
or buried long ago. When I marked the dawn
of your tattered boyhood with a story,
the meaning was not that life goes on—but
even being the shade of holy
we are, even when the stars conspire
to see us join the sky once more—only we decide
where our voice will take us. Boy, not even death
can dull your ebony edges—when the world asks you
to move for their comfort, take up more space. Sharpen
your mouth for the howling. I taught you to make good
trouble. The heavens, shattering at your will—what ceiling
will you next rapture into endless sky? You held me. I tried
to hold you back: & the world reminded me not even
these god-cleaving arms, cindered
with sacrifice, could hold the wind.
deadname tanka from my father
boy—my fragile lie.
too soft for my palms. i watched
you dance into a
storm of fire.
i held my breath
when you wouldn’t stop burning.
