A little bitter, like eating a grapefruit
with my grandfather,
with his tiny, toothy knife
designed specifically for the job.
A father of daughters,
he’d learned how to eat without wincing.
He knew how to leave for work
or whatever.
To leave the girls at home.
The boys catch sharks and barracuda
in a boat roaring back at the ocean
cracking against its rigid hull.
This city was built to defy the weather.
It was pulled from the sea
by boat builders in exile—
people raised with the knowledge
that pigeon and dove are two shades
of the same bird.
Between my dreams I tried to remember
the name for a lookout.
Nest came back to me first, then crow.
I blessed my boy with the flesh
of a sour fruit, with salt,
with the sign of the cross.
The school has hired a guard with a gun
but still.
I fed my boy my body
for so long.
