The first fragment

I recover, my

father is bathing

my brother &

I. We are

in our flat

in Vernon Park.

I am a

child, six at

most, submerged in

a plastic bucket.

No one speaks.

No voices escape

their open jaws.

My father &

brother in their

boxers. The walls

the colour of

old blood. Someone

asks me if

they visit me

in my dreams.

One pours water

over my head.

One presses all

ten tips of

his fingers into

my scalp. I

rake through the

detritus. I am

four. My brother

is in a

wider pail. The

pail is green.

There is a

bird trying to

enter this poem

& failing. My

brother strikes water.

My father weeps.

No dreams are

better than aphonic

ones. The pail

is blue. My

toes go numb.

The pail is

technicolour. The bird

doesn’t understand why

uninhabited houses need

windows. Haunt the

echo. Haunt the

pail. Look up

avicide. There has

to be a

way to the

beginning that isn’t

through. My mother

is at the

market. My brother

smiles. The bird

hurls itself into

the glass and

doesn’t die. My

body. The bird.

Rake.