tracks on our backs

bony and a little bit serrated

like laying a thin mattress over bumpy rail tracks

in the pouring rain and asking the princess

to count the stripes on our backs

an all-american family

christian with a lot of kids, catholic school

one of them is raped repeatedly

by her older brother

they make lemon bars and chili

the youngest at ten years old writes a will

they go to the church potluck in hand-me-downs

home to a coin toss of their father's scowl or smile

and the smell of fresh-baked bread

the kids are all grown up

they can't hold down jobs because of their delusions

some of them are in therapy and some of them should be

dad's dead he got cancer

mom cries because the kids don't talk anymore

i ask grandma why she doesn't believe in dinosaurs

she says it's because she believes in god

i ask mom why she yells at dad

she says because her dad beat her

we get fat and bony and fat and bony again

at christmas dinner i'm out walking on the train tracks

grandma died last month

i see her ghost, a dinosaur in the stars

i take my shirt off and i ask her

to count the stripes on my back

—November 2021, Stanford, CA