Delineation

I press tape along the molding. Moonlit Beach goes down

this new border. Just a whisper

of chartreuse on the baseboards. When I’m done,

there will be no memory of wood paneling. Still the walls

throw their shadows through the paint.

A child’s head, once emptied of its skull, folds like clay

on the floor of a blackened hospital. Another keeps his skull

but not his scalp.

The great Gaza sky settles

into homework toy car rack

of wedding veils. Legs torn off at thigh and knee

and hip—

stop—

globs of paint I wipe with thumb attached to hand,

my arm, my torso, stop—look, there’s morning

sun in here, a gold lamp; the internet will cooperate

when I make it. When I get done drawing this margin.

My crisp line. My clean rollers. Bristles left on the wall—

nice morning

but for those, and for

the mother,

crawling into a hospital bed with her dead son, yellow and purple

with bruising—stop—I will pretend

not to notice the flies or the way

the boy’s sister howls

his name to the wind—