After I Was Shot

                    after Halyna Kruk

Good sons have found me crying
in local park ditches, where I’ve been
called chink & faggot all the times

before & after. Still, I return. I keep
trying, like a good son, though not quite
as good. I’m more bird than human,

rolling in the mud I’ve made. Above me,
forefathers looking down from pavements,
carrying guns like bodies, kissing guns

like bodies. I let them repeat history.
The flowering branches in my way—snapped.
The cicadas that warned—sorry, sung—too loudly,

they squashed for me. I’m in good hands,
wrapped in good guns. When released,
there are bullets in the trees chirping

about standards, phone calls flying
in between trees, the trees moving
toward me with legs. I don’t remember

why I was crying, but there were guns
all around the clearing. Big beautiful guns
shoved into my mouth & don’t kill.