CALL ME BELOVED

Whenever hands reach out
they’ve only pulled me down –
it’s like how my mom and dad
would drive to visit with boxes
full of garbage, broken tools and
old mementos – oh, they’ve always
written such devastating poems;
all the ways they couldn’t love me,
the gestures they could have just
written down, ideally, but instead
here’s your junk mail, that broken
trophy from high school – do you
remember? Do you remember us?
floodwater already up to my nostrils,
I’m gasping, spluttering back to shore,
catcher in the rye shouting stay out,
save yourselves; I will be fine –
all I know is treading water