Diptych (Headline Heads)
for Giovanni Melton (2003-2017), murdered by his father, who didn’t want a gay son
Cruel tumulus fate,
all for sips of spring’s first honey
Each misstep mottles cotton
O cleft birdbath,
o awkwardness,
compressed epiglottis,
quiet buttercup,
wings’ asphyxiate
Catecheses iris out pane-man mouth,
child sours down
church house buzzard feathers —
garden-side sigh
Father’s spark-surge on son’s face,
man heat, man palms sweaty, man’s every
corrosive phoneme spit-
shot to the linoleum
How does man boil so beneath
without shedding his flesh
How hard he pines to snipe son’s soft,
brown eyes locked in same brown eyes
Four bullets, pointed
