Waymaker

Kids swear I’m an only child,
they track the way I walk. This hurts
my mother, the only girl
to four boys and a German shepherd
in a Holy home. She never suffered
a bully at school. Confides
she prayed: boy, first, then a girl,
so baby sis would have muscle
to protect her. Mother folds
and tucks this orison, frayed
with rot, in her chest, as if buried
in a bosom’s hollow
it has one Hail Mary left.

How big is he?
            Bigger than you.
You don’t act like a little sister.
            Little sisses look up,
I look through a boy whose bones ran
off to manhood without skin;
weeps, rather than defends; strikes
drywall until it bears
his brunt; tattles,
’cause he’s no spine to carry
shame; ransoms our peace
for indulgences—denied,
twists upheaval, like an uninvited
house centipede flares every surface
he crashes, before coiling
in a corner. Ferments
a pall
over our fragile island
summer, portending slaughter

right when the holes are caulked,
and the china’s laid,
or friends are in pj’s,
or the boy who steals his grandpa’s address
stops by
to say, hi. Don’t worry,

whatever happens
here is between you, me,
the clearing.
He won’t ask for you.
This hand doesn’t tug and point,
it curls pink
talons into its palm.

These soles don’t run,
they turn,
and turn around
to walk me home,
while I pluck teeth
out the shadows of my fist.