~	i sit down at my desk below the escarpment above the lake in Hamilton, Ontario to write this poem for you: Father, inventor of the hand grenade, Mother, creator of the bayonet Brother, narrator of this poem Sister, don't extend the highway into 'this rare jewel of conservation land' brother don't swim across the jungle's single white line i have a broken arm wrapped in plaster imagine the lemurs the marmosets eyeing the sliver of a radio antenna reaching far into the night sky a television screen filled with explosions a documentary in english broadcast throughout Madagascar
~	small cigar box nails silver by searchlight rain down upon the shed where my brother lives, fall through a knot hole in the painted pine land around him pinning him to his mattress he had not yet fallen asleep but had lain down in his tuxedo after attending to the needs of the animals living around him he had spent the evening by the water smoking building a scale model of the shed and the clearing where he lived the tapping of his miniature construction echoing across the river disturbing the animals' careful listening soon they changed stations on their radio the small dial between thumb and forefinger feeling to one experienced marmoset like a human nipple
~	i've often seen pictures of death black robe billowing over picked-clean bones i am requesting this grant to buy my brother time to work on a new project a figure dressed in white roams through the underworld looking for a shade to play Monopoly 'i'd put a hotel on every street in the heavenly city' 'do not collect teeth, go directly to the traffic accident' and so the game will go assuming the dead have not decided against dying or taken to hiding out in suitcases picking their teeth with lighted matches eating sandwiches filled with scabs my brother expects the completed work to be thirty-three pages long and feels it will be a significant contribution and anyway he will have ample opportunity in Madagascar when i say thirty-three you understand i mean approximately for he will drink dark liquids and spit a fine line upwards most of the text forming on the ceiling above him some spilling down upon his body please be advised that additional rivulets will collect on the floor about him and these should be considered an addendum to the main text readers will enjoy living at my brother's house reading in and around my brother's body even as he lies there revising
~	it was the hand of God slicing through the clouds slapping me in the face filling my mind with melodious sighs i never told you but your story was a failure lacing the electrical outlets and with copper wire standing in a bucket of water profaning the name of the Hamilton Caged Birds Society under a ladder saying prayers backwards while dressed in garters you hoped to prove that while not exactly orthodox you were a believer you had read your building code could write long sinuous poems in the name of your brother get them published in haiku quarterlies one stanza at a time under the still moon of your tongue twenty-five grant recommendations and a bag of fleas
~	a book that happened to fall open on the right page behind a screen a scribe waited for Pope Gregory to dictate as Pope Gregory waited for the bird perched on his shoulder to dictateas the bird waited for God, omnipresent, eternal and a good melodist to dictate the chants now known as Gregorian and when my arm has healed i will give my birds to the Hamilton Caged Bird Society their members dressed as clergy listen to the tweet and caw of their little congregants flitting about their cages spilling seed onto the floor
~	April, September, February we've been waiting for god to cough up some cash or at least a favourable word on my behalf there's been no indication that my application was ever received i understand the workload is tremendous i've included a self-addressed stamped envelope for ease of processing and your convenience a small variation in the movement of a single planet would be sufficient i am watching carefully have my television monitoring gamma rays so far: only reruns and dead air tell me again the story of the bayonet and the bed how little explosions comforted you and you slept last night i had that dream again carpenters parachuted into my open mouth began to build a stable for a team of horses born from the alabaster foam of my raving hear us they called to me we wish you fleet-footed sleep and a blanket of foals when you wake at dawn be careful for the sun is to be dropkicked into the bright sky of morn remember all we need is handsaws and sturdy one-by-four pine
~	perhaps i should explain why i am ducking to avoid the barrel of a tank as it swivels around the kitchen the precise timing required to flip a pancake they leave the pan just as the barrel clears the stove return to the pan before it sweeps round again as they land an explosion in the rec room a television program about grenades all their uses behind the drywall in our bedroom there are soldiers waiting for orders see, this is the command setting on the thermostat i must cover up the plugs or else they shall send their little snakes out on reconnaissance already i can feel them creeping up my nightgown my father pulls the chair out from under me as i sit to write his will he opens a desk drawer there's a dancer kissing a joint chief of staff they are surrounded by beetles drawing up plans for a new subdivision way out on the spiral arm of Dundas, Ontario and remember, Father inventor of the hand grenade i too have a spiral arm it is comfortable and rather stylish resting in its sling of indigo cotton a nest for fantastic birds of iridescent feather their almost inaudible wheezing noticed only by me