this is how a father wrapped himself into a cellophane. he calls it freedom from filling his belly with much hunger/ from dying with pieces of bricks in his mouth. this is how men are burnt in the dryness of their sweats. some call it trans-mutation, it is how bodies carry their homes on their necks & shoulders. they say: men don’t cry—yes. they relish the pain of living by brooding underneath their skins/ by feeding hundreds of mouths in the cracks on their palms. this is how a father unties himself from a  bag of bones; to die and bury himself in the fires of dying. call it hell/ call it shallow pit/ call it cowardice/ call it how they run from themselves, it is how they fill their sorrows with enough hunger from the dryness of their throat. call it how they unlearn how to die and relearn how to live without pain running in their blood.